Re: File dialog in wxt does not work

[Philipp K. J. <ja...@ie...>]

On Fri, 19 Sep 2014 19:55:45 -0400 (EDT)
Allin Cottrell <cot...@wf...> wrote:

> On Fri, 19 Sep 2014, Philipp K. Janert wrote:
> 
> > [snip]
> >
> >>> The functionality is nice, but the user-interface
> >>> might be rather confusing for people. (I doubt I
> >>> am the only one who expected a file dialog.)
> >>
> >> The icon at the top left is supposed to represent "copy" and a
> >> clipboard, and its tooltip says "Copy the plot to clipboard". I'm
> >> not sure why one would expect a "file dialog".
> >
> > Answer: because that's what is in the top-left corner
> > of menus, almost universally. (Eg, among many others,
> > gnuplot's own wxt terminal.)
> >
> > The icon is too small and to unspecific to send a
> > strong message, either way. And I admit that I did
> > not wait for the tooltip.
> 
> Granted, top-left corner is usually File/<something or other> and 
> the icon is not immediately recognizable. But I'm not sure what the 
> "solution" is: maybe move the icon off the top-left corner, and/or 
> add feedback in the form of a "Plot copied to clipboard" message 
> box?

Those were the two ideas that came to my mind, too.
Additionally, I think the icon could be much enhanced
with the addition of a big red arrow from the graph to
the clipboard. In fact, I'd interchange the current 
positions of the graph and the clipboard in the icon,
so that the arrow would align with the typical (western)
workflow "left to right". 

Another idea is to change the functionality - I am not so 
familiar with the capabilities of wxt, but would it be
possible to save the graph to PDF/PNG immediately, rather
than (merely) to the clipboard? This would naturally lead
to a file-selection dialog, as in the qt terminal.

I should add that I really like this feature in principle,
because the workflow of saving (actually: exporting) graphs 
from gnuplot has always been a bit awkward (5 steps: set t, 
set o, replot, set o, set t). So, being able to do it all
in one mouse-click is a huge improvement (in my opinion),
and also brings gnuplot's behavior closer to what current
users have come to expect from applications.

> 
> Actually, I'll agree with Philipp: nothing about the GUI options in 
> the wxt plot window is immediately clear. For example, what is the 
> cross-hair cursor supposed to do, as you move it around?
> 
> Allin Cottrell