unified dashes

[Petr M. <mi...@ph...>]

> > It seems x11 supports the "dash" option, but ignores this.
> > Is the dash line functionality not implemented?
> 
> It is implemented and fully functional.
> It just happens to look terrible on the screen, so the default
> settings don't use it :-)
> 
> The definition of dash types is controlled by Xresources.
> See the file Gnuplot.app-defaults for full information.

In my $HOME/.Xdefaults, I have no dash option (compared to 
Gnuplot.app-defaults). Therefore I expect that running

	gnuplot -dashed

would use the default dashed pattern sequence, it does not seem so.

It works after
	xrdb -merge Gnuplot.app-defaults 
	gnuplot -dashed

Could these defaults work also without putting the new stuff into xrdb?

> > Could wxt add also this option?
> 
> Almost certainly.  The pdfcairo terminal support "dashed", so the
> support must be there in the underlying cairo library.

Comparing the dashed output of x11, wxt, postscript, pdfcairo and pngcairo 
for "dashcolor.dem", the pattern is not consistent -- dash length are 
different, in some terminals there is "-." and in some "-..". It would be 
great if the sequence is consistent, for example:

- (solid), -- (dashed), .. (dotted?), -. (dashdot), --. (dashdashdot),
-.. (dashdotdot) etc.

I propose that the dash stuff to be removed from config's (of x11, for 
example) and replace it by user-defined values?

plot sin(x) with line dashtype "-.." {dl NNN | dd NNN}

I'm not sure how "dashlength|dl" works ... maybe "dashdensity|dd" option 
could be used to increase/decrese dash density?

---
PM