Re: extending pstricks terminal driver

[Juergen W. <wie...@fr...>]

Ethan Merritt wrote:
> I am afraid that I have no time to check out lua + TikZ myself,
> but I am  certainly open to adding this new driver to CVS if
> multiple people agree that it is a useful addition, and if Peter
> confirms that we can include it under the gnuplot license.

The terminal certainly is a very useful addition.  

> Do you think it is ready for inclusion in CVS?

I think in almost all respects it is.  The ./configure script has to
be updated (see below) and there are some minor edges in the user
interface; it does not "feel" very gnuplot'ish.  For example, AFAICR
the "set term" command line cannot make use of string expressions or
even real valued expressions.  To some degree this probably cannot
be avoided because the parsing is done within the lua script.  But
some edges actually could be smoothed.

That said, as long as it is marked EXPERIMENTAL and you are free to
drop backwards compatibility, I think it is quite mature.

> Does the ./configure script need to be modified for it (that is,
> should it try to autodetect lya and/or TikZ)?

Yes.  But it should check for the lua library and build the terminal
conditionally.  I don't think it has to check for TikZ, as it is
only needed for using the gnuplot output.  Additionally the
gnuplot.lua script has to be installed.  As things are it is
expected to reside along in the same directory as gnuplot_x11.

I'd like to do more review on this but it seems I won't find much
time within the next few months.

Juergen