Re: linetype vs linestyle mess

[Ralf J. <jue...@cs...>]

On Fri, 7 Mar 2008, Ethan Merritt wrote:

> A bit of both. The issue is that the colors for hidden-surfaces are
> auto-generated based on the line _type_,  but you gave an splot
> command using a line _style_.   Bad luck that it somehow ends up choosing a
> linetype lt -2 or -3 (background color or no line).
>
> This is supposed to be fixable using the command
> 	set style increment user
> (which is a truly horrible name for a command;  kudos to anyone who
> can suggest a better one so that we can deprecate this).  This command


I think a clean solution would be to phase out the
use of linetypes in plot commands altogether.
Instead, the plot command would cycle through line
styles. There would be a set of pre-defined default
line styles, the definitions you get now with

    set style line <n> default

for n=1..1000, or something like that.
For backwards compatibility 'lt x' in a plot command
would be interpreted as 'ls x'. There is no need for

    set style increment user

it can be declared deprecated (for backwards
compatibility it would be a command without effect).
Linetypes would be used in defining line styles only,

    set style line 1 lt 5 lw 2 lc rgb "green"

Ralf