Menu
▾
▴
Gnuplot version 5 release candidate
|
From: sfeam <sf...@us...> - 2014-05-15 05:57:44
|
Today I have updated the version info in the CVS source to version 5.0.rc1
A 5.0.rc1 tarball a a draft set of Release Notes are now on SourceForge
in a "staging area" of the Files section.
(I'm not quite sure how that works, but I think for the first
3 days it is only visible if you are on some list of developers.
Unfortunately I don't know exactly where that list is so I don't
know how many of you are on it.)
On Saturday either the tarball will automagically become visible to
everyone or I will manually move it if that fails.
Next Monday, if nothing has gone wrong, I will send announcements
to various places.
If you have any last minute issues/requests/additions
please send them by the end of the week. If you have
suggestions where to send announcements, send those too.
I append a copy of the draft Release Notes.
happy gnuplotting!
Ethan
GNUPLOT VERSION 5.0.rc1 RELEASE NOTES
=====================================
We are happy to announce a release candidate for gnuplot version 5.
Version 5 will be a major release with significant new capabilities
and enhancements compared to previous gnuplot versions.
MAJOR NEW FEATURES
==================
* The dot/dash pattern of a line can now be controlled independently
from other properties using the keyword "dashtype".
* Text markup now supports bold and italic font settings in addition to
the subscript, superscript, font size and other options previously
provided by the "enhanced text" mode. This mode is now the default.
* Command scripts may place in-line data in a named data block for
repeated plotting.
* RGB colors can include an alpha-channel for transparency.
E.g. SEETHRUBLU = (0xDD << 24) + (0x0 << 16) + (0x0 << 8) + (0xFF)
set linetype N linecolor rgb SEETHRUBLU
* Bit shift operators << and >> (used in above example)
* Secondary axes (x2, y2) can be locked to the primary axis via a mapping
function. In the simplest case this guarantees that the primary and
secondary axis ranges are identical. In the general case it allows you
to define a non-linear axis, something that previously was only possible
for the special case of log scaling.
* The "import" command attaches a user-defined function name to a
function provided by an extenal shared object (i.e. a plugin).
* Previous commands in the history list of an interactive session can be
reexecuted by number. For example "history !5" will reexecute the
command numbered 5 in the list reported by "history".
* New plot styles "with parallelaxes", labeled contours.
* New coordinate system (Degrees, Minutes, Seconds) "set xdata geographic".
* Hypertext labels in the interactive terminals including web display
using the HTML canvas or svg terminals.
Many other additions are described in the "New Features" section of the
documentation.
CHANGES
=======
Gnuplot development assigns very high priority to backward compatibility
with earlier versions. For example any command script that worked in
version 4.0 is expected to continue to work for all version 4 releases
including the most recent one (4.6.5). However changes introduced in
version 5 can affect the operation of some version 4 scripts.
A brief summary of potentially incompatible changes is given here.
* Earlier versions of gnuplot used the keyword "linetype" to mean both
the color and the solid/dot/dash pattern of a line. Version 5 has
separate keywords "linecolor" and "dashtype". You can assign any
desired color and a dash pattern to any linetype. The program now
uses a default set of 8 linetypes, all solid. You can change these
or add new linetypes as you please, or include the desired color or
dash pattern directly in a plot command. You do not need to change
the current terminal or terminal mode in order to used dashed lines.
* The handling of input data containing NaN, Inf, inconsistent number of
data columns, or other unexpected content has changed. See documentation
under "missing" for examples and figures.
* Time coordinates are stored internally as the number of seconds relative
to the standard unix epoch 1-Jan-1970. Earlier versions of gnuplot used
a different epoch internally (1-Jan-2000). This change resolves
inconsistencies introduced when time in seconds was generated externally.
The epoch convention used by a particular gnuplot installation can be
determined using the command `print strftime("%F",0)`.
Time is now stored to at least millisecond precision.
* The "reverse" keyword (e.g. "set xrange [*:*] reverse") now affects only
autoscaling. It has no effect on explicit ranges.
"set xrange [0:1] reverse" is _not_ the same as "set xrange [1:0]".
* Options to the "fit" command are now given by "set fit ..." rather than
by setting environmental variables. Fit can handle up to MAX_NUM_VAR
independent variables (currently 12). Variables other than the first
two (x, y) have been dissociated from axis names.
E.g. "set urange [U1:U2]" has no effect on fitting. Use the command
"set dummy ..." to assign names to fit variables 3 ... 12.
* The function `timecolumn(N,"timeformat")` now has 2 parameters.
Because the required second parameter is not associated with a particular
data axis, this allows using the `timecolumn` function to read time data
for reasons other than specifying the x or y coordinate.
* The `call` command is implemented by providing a set of variables ARGC,
ARG0, ..., ARG9. ARG0 holds the name of the script file being executed.
ARG1 to ARG9 are string variables and thus may either be referenced directly
or expanded as macros, e.g. @ARG1. The older convention for referencing
call parameters as tokens $0 ... $9 is deprecated.
* "unset xrange" (and other axis ranges) restores the default range.
* "unset terminal" restores the original terminal of the current session.
NOTES TO PACKAGERS AND TESTERS
===============================
Configuration options for interactive use
-----------------------------------------
The 5.0 source code supports three primary cross-platform output modes
in addition to several platform-specific modes.
1) Qt
The qt terminal supports interactive display with menu-driven
output to png, svg or pdf. The final 5.0 release may also support
scripted output to these same file formats but this is not present
in rc1. If either Qt4 or Qt5 is detected by the configure script,
this will be the default terminal. It is now the fastest and most
full-featured interactive terminal option.
To disable this terminal:
./configure --without-qt
To force use of Qt4 even if Qt5 is present:
./configure --with-qt=qt4
2) Cairo/pango/wxWidgets
This set of terminals includes
- pngcairo, pdfcairo, epscairo, and cairolatex for output to a file
- wxt for interactive display
All of these will be built by default if the configuration script finds
the required libcairo, libpango, libcairo, libwxgtk, and related
support libraries
To disable these terminals:
./configure --without-cairo
./configure --with-cairo --disable-wxt
3) X11 (the "classic" interactive interface)
This used to be the preferred interactive interface, but the newer
wxt and qt terminals offer nicer output and a wider range of features.
Options for output to files
---------------------------
Of course the terminals (output modes) present in previous gnuplot versions
are also still available. These include, among many more obscure options:
- png/jpeg/gif output via libgd
- PostScript
- Many flavors of TeX/LaTeX output, including TikZ and ConTeXt
- Bitmapped output to support many older devices (e.g. HP deskjet, epson,
seiko printers, pbm bitmapped graphics files) is available if needed
but is no longer configured in by default.
./configure --with-bitmap-terminals
Options for generating interactive plots for web display
--------------------------------------------------------
- Mouseable output for display on the web can be created using either
the canvas terminal (HTML5 2D canvas element) or the svg terminal.
Both allow zooming, toggling plot elements on/off, and user-scriptable
hot keys.
Online demo plots
-----------------
Demo plots illustrating new and old features are online at
http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo_5.0/
OTHER NOTES
===============================
Installation
------------
You can download a source tarball for gnuplot version 5.0.rc1 from the
gnuplot development site on SourceForge.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2055
Installation instructions are available in the source itself; the short
version for linux/unix-like systems is to unpack the tarball and then
build it:
cd gnuplot-5.0.rc1 ; ./configure ; make
test it:
make check
install it:
make install
Pay careful attention to the output of the ./configure script.
It may indicate that some output drivers have been omitted because the
necessary support libraries were not found. In general you need to have
previously installed the "*-devel-*" versions of these libraries.
Known issues
------------
- Mac OSX ships with a terminal input library that appears to be GNU
libreadline, but isn't really. The program tries to cope with this, but
you may get better results by configuring gnuplot to use either its own
built-in readline routines or the real GNU libreadline.
- The gnuplot build system is not very good at figuring out where to find
or install LaTeX-related files. This can affect use of the new lua/tikz
and ConTeXt terminals.
- You can configure support for both wxt and qt into the same gnuplot
executable, but only one of these two output modes can be used in any
given gnuplot session.
Support
-------
Please report all bugs and installation problems to the bug tracker
on SourceForge:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=2055&atid=102055
There is also an gnuplot discussion forum on usenet group
comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot
Development
-----------
Gnuplot development is quite active. The development branch on SourceForge
contains preliminary implementations of many new features. Following the
release of gnuplot 5.0, the development branch will be identified as
version 5.1. Feedback and contributions of code are very welcome.
|
