Re: grouping available terminals together

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Ethan Merritt wrote:
> On Monday 12 February 2007 12:39, Hans-Bernhard Bröker wrote:
> 
>>Ethan A Merritt wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Back to the topic of allowing color in LaTeX plots.  It seems perfectly
>>>reasonable to me.  
>>
>>Unfortunately, Donald E. Knuth disagrees with that view.  TeX doesn't do 
>>colour, period.
> 
> 
> But LaTeX does, it seems.
> This is a LaTeX driver, right? not a TeX-with-nothing-else driver.
> I'm a LaTeX novice, and may be missing something obvious, but adding
> color "just works" for me here using teTeX.

You both have a valid point.

I think there should be a form of output that is LaTeX with no "specials", and a form that allows use of standard LaTeX packages that might use "\special".  What to call those differences, I'm not sure, e.g., option "-specials", different driver name "slatex", whatever.

Hans mentioned the reasons for DVI platform/app/program independence.  xdvi, for example, uses its own bag of tricks for displaying EPS images.  (Note how EPS images can't be zoomed.)  Other "\special" items like rotated end up in the xdvi view as being not rotated.  (I've just ignored that... so long as it comes out right with dvips I pay no mind, but Hans has a point.)


> 
>>Yes, some extensions of TeX using \special commands put into the DVI 
>>output file, do; as do variants of TeX such as pdftex.  But those are 
>>not TeX.
> 
> 
> Here is a simple test.tex file produced by gnuplot with color enabled
> 
> % GNUPLOT: LaTeX picture
> \setlength{\unitlength}{0.240900pt}
> \ifx\plotpoint\undefined\newsavebox{\plotpoint}\fi
> \sbox{\plotpoint}{\rule[-0.200pt]{0.400pt}{0.400pt}}%
> \color[rgb]{0.00,0.00,0.00}
> \begin{picture}(1500,900)(0,0)
> \sbox{\plotpoint}{\rule[-0.200pt]{0.400pt}{0.400pt}}%
> \color[rgb]{0.00,0.00,0.00}
> \put(60.0,40.0){\rule[-0.200pt]{0.400pt}{177.543pt}}
> \put(60.0,40.0){\rule[-0.200pt]{337.019pt}{0.400pt}}
> \put(1459.0,40.0){\rule[-0.200pt]{0.400pt}{177.543pt}}
> \color[rgb]{0.00,0.00,1.00}
> \put(759,839){\makebox(0,0){TeX color test - title in blue, plot in red}}
> \put(60.0,777.0){\rule[-0.200pt]{337.019pt}{0.400pt}}
> \color[rgb]{1.00,0.00,0.00}
> \put(60,40){\makebox(0,0){$+$}}
> \put(526,286){\makebox(0,0){$+$}}
> \put(993,531){\makebox(0,0){$+$}}
> \put(1459,777){\makebox(0,0){$+$}}
> \color[rgb]{0.00,0.00,0.00}
> \put(60.0,40.0){\rule[-0.200pt]{0.400pt}{177.543pt}}
> \put(60.0,40.0){\rule[-0.200pt]{337.019pt}{0.400pt}}
> \put(1459.0,40.0){\rule[-0.200pt]{0.400pt}{177.543pt}}
> \put(60.0,777.0){\rule[-0.200pt]{337.019pt}{0.400pt}}
> \color[rgb]{0.00,0.00,0.00}
> \end{picture}
> 
> And here is my test LaTeX document:
>   \documentclass{article}
>   \usepackage{color}
>   \begin{document}
>   \input{test}
>   \end{document}
> 
> I see nothing marked \special

The "\special" is part of the color package.  Similarly, the "\special" is part of the rotate package.  The idea is LaTeX output that avoids using any LaTeX workarounds for shortcomings in TeX.  (Hence, the reason for running xdvi with warnings turned on the other day.)


> It may well be that there is already no point in using latex.trm;
> that was my other question :-)

Well, there is a point there, but I still think there is a fine distinction for having this.  The advantage of the LaTeX output, i.e., that gnuplot can produce such output, is the ability to place text formatted for interpretation by LaTeX.  That is, one can place a string of text on the plot, that when run through LaTeX comes out as a beautifully formatted math formula or symbol.

So, I'm with Hans that there should be some form of LaTeX terminal whose end result is absolutely no "\specials" or LaTeX packages that produce "\specials".  But at the same time I'm not averse to a "-specials" option that allows use of color and rotate packages, or any other standard LaTeX package.

Dan