Re: Plans for gnuplot version 5

[sfeam <sf...@us...>]

On Thursday, 06 March 2014 01:58:18 AM Tait wrote:
> 
> I'm wishing I'd kept a list somewhere, now. Off the top of my head:
> 
> Change the default color sequence
> The default colors are poor for accessibility (red-green
> color-blindness being the most common, for example), poor for printing
> (saturation and color profile conversions), poor for conversion to
> grayscale, and don't fit within any of the usual
> triadic/split-complementary/etc. color schemes.

I put in this work already for 4.6.
Apparently it is not well enough advertised.

You can look at the demo collection to see the default color + point
sequence in my installations.  My preferred defaults and two other
pre-coded sets are in the 4.6 distribution package and any build of 4.7.

One of the included sets is taken from
"Palette of colors selected to be easily distinguishable by
color-blind individuals with either protanopia or deuteranopia"
Bang Wong [2011] Nature Methods 8, 441.

I find this one to be a little extreme, so I tweaked it with
the help of a protanopic consultant to generate the one I 
recommend for general use.

So what do we have to do to get people to use the new
color schemes - hide the red/green/blue scheme altogether?

Should we introduce a new command:
   set colors {default|podo|monochrome|classic}

Where
	default:	my favorite, derived from Wong
	podo:		the Wong palette for color-blind individuals
	monochrome:	gray scale
	classic:	the old ugly red/green/blue

But note that you can do this already in 4.6 using the commands
	load 'colors_default.gp'
	load 'colors_podo.gp'
	load 'colors_mono.gp'

As to greyscale-compatible color palettes, that was the motivation
for adding the "cubehelix" palette options.  This was taken from
D A Green (2011) http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.5083

> Default enhanced mode on

As noted in the announcement, that is indeed the new default.

	Ethan