Re: Porting Gnuplot to Trolltech Qt

[Allin C. <cot...@wf...>]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008, Sebi35 wrote:

> I've been working a lot with Qt and I often have to use plot 
> functions. I've recently discovered the power of Gnuplot and I'd 
> like to encapsulate gnuplot in a Qt widget. Is that possible? 
> What is the best to do this?

Presumably you could model a Qt terminal on the wxt terminal in 
current CVS gnuplot.  Along similar lines, I'm tempted to try 
writing a GTK terminal that does not depend on the additional 
wxWidgets layer.

> I have read all the docs of the gnuplot distribution, and I feel 
> like if I code a "Qt" terminal, the widget will only be 
> reachable through the gnuplot application. Is there anyway to 
> use Gnuplot as a library?

As Ethan says, No.  This possibility has been discussed in the 
past, but gnuplot is still dependent on a large number of global 
variables; it doesn't have the modularity that would be required 
of a plotting library.  

But gnuplot is fast and easily scripted.  As a "third party" 
programmer, even if you're not using pipes you can, for example, 
get gnuplot to generate a PNG file then display that file inside a 
window created using the widget set of your choice, and arrange 
suitable feedback to gnuplot via your own menus.

Allin Cottrell