Re: Mousing hotkeys i/v/V to toggle multiple plots on or off

[Jon G. <jo...@th...>]

> > Actually I think that one key would be enough (the invert one) as
> > hotkeys are hit by the user, not by the script or piping program -
> > there is also just one key for toggling grid, log, ruler, ...
>
> I had the same initial reaction as you, that only the "i" key was
> necessary, since you could get back the full set of plots with a
> replot or "e" key.
>
> It is still true that  "V" = "v" + "i"  and therefore so far as I can see
> only one of the keys "v" or "V" is needed.

The main reason behind this patch was to make dealing with plots with a
large number of lines less of a pain, and in that light the most useful
operation is hiding all lines. *Showing* all lines on the other hand
seems less useful to me, and in any case as Ethan points out, we have
the "e" key for this. It therefore makes most sense to me if the
shortcut that is kept is "V" (hide all lines; this could be changed to
"v"). "v" (show all) is not all that important to me.

As to whether "V" is needed at all considering you can do it with "e" +
"i", I know I would personally much prefer the operationto be possible
with a single key. That said, perhaps the default configuration could be
to have "i" only, but keep the builtins so that people could bind "V" or
"v" if they'd like?

> The counterexample is a multiplot. You cannot replot an individual
> panel of the multiplot, but the "v/V" keys do work to display or hide
> the full set of plots in that panel.

I don't have much experience with multiplots, but it seems to me like
"V" could still be useful considering "e" might not really do what you
want (nor what you'd expect).

> > In order to achieve this functionality from command line, a command
> > like "set plot visibility {on|off|invert}"
>
> The issues of multiple windows or multiplots in a single window
> complicate this.  If you read through the discussion attached to the
> patch, you'll see that we discussed adding additional parameters to
> the term->modify_plots() interface to handle multiple plots or windows.

The ideal would be to be able to say something like:

	set plot 1:1 visibility on    # Show plot 1 in window 1
	set plot 2:3-5 visibility off # Hide plots 3-5 in window 2
	set plot 2: visibility invert # Invert visibility of all plots
	                              # in window 2

Unfortunately, gnuplot does not (currently) keep track of the visibility
of individual plots, nor does it (afaik) have a standardized way of
specifying a certain window or (range of) plot(s).

That said, it should certainly be possible to implement. `modify_plots`
was imagined to be quite generic, and adding parameters for window and
plot specifiers should be quite straightforward once a good standard for
this is decided.

> But I thought people would like to try it out in the current form
> before discussing possible extensions.

^ This.

> > I propose to have only "v" key to invert the visibility and the "set plot" 
> > command.

I think having "hide all" as well would be very useful for some users
(myself included).

Jon