Lua/Tikz terminal behavior

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

How much experience do people have with the Lua/Tikz
terminal? I have been experimenting with it a bit,
and I found some of the behavior bizarre (not to 
mention obscure).

Below is a log of various sessions. Three problems
that I seem to have narrowed down: when I try to 
write successively to more than one file during one 
gnuplot session, the subsequent tex files do not
compile. Tex stops at some point, waiting for input.
(See session 2 below.)

When using arrows, gnuplot fails to create the proper
lua script (which is bad), but when I then try to
exit gnuplot, it gets completely wedged, continuously
spewing messages about "Missing Lua context". One has
to kill it from a separate shell. (Session 3)

I can use arrows when I set the terminal option
"gparrows". I tried this after seeing something
about "misusing the angle value" in the doc. I am
not sure, though, what the doc is really saying - 
what should I do if I want to use Lua/Tikz-arrows?

Finally, how do I include Tex constructs in text labels
(which, I assume, is the whole point). The documentation
does not seem to be mention that at all. I tried the
same syntax as in the epslatex terminal, namely simply
including Tex code:
	set label "Hello $\int e^{-x}$" at 0,0
but this only led to one of those tex files that
don't compile. (Session 6)

At this point, I find it all rather obscure. I also
wonder whether it is worthwhile trying to figure this
out - what can this terminal do that none of the 
others can do? I searched the web a little and did 
not find much.

Any experiences, insights, opinions?

Best,

		Ph.


SESSION TRANSCRIPTS FOLLOW


SESSION 1

plot sin(x)
set t tikz standalone
set o 't1.tex'
replot
set o

shell> pdflatex t1.tex : OK

============================================================
SESSION 2

plot sin(x)
set t tikz standalone
set o 't2.tex'
replot
set o
set o 't3.tex'
replot

shell> pdflatex t2.tex : OK
shell> pdflatex t3.tex : 

Preview: Fontsize 10pt
Preview: PDFoutput 1

Overfull \hbox (10.65929pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 1083--1083
[][] 
Preview: Tightpage 0 0 0 0
[1{/var/lib/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map}])
*

============================================================
SESSION 3

plot sin(x)
set arrow from -5,-.4 to 2,.6
set t tikz standalone
set o 't4.tex'
replot
         .../rc52/staging/share/gnuplot/5.0/lua/gnuplot-tikz.lua:346:
attempt to concatenate local 'direction' (a nil value) stac

BUT THEN:

I wish to quit gnuplot using ^D, but it doesn't terminate,
instead it prints FOREVER (unstoppable, must close window):

    Missing Lua context! No script?

============================================================
SESSION 4

plot sin(x)
set arrow from -5,-.4 to 2,.6
set t tikz standalone gparrows
set o 't5.tex'
replot

shell> pdflatex t5.tex : OK

============================================================
SESSION 5

plot sin(x)
set label "Hello"
set t tikz standalone
set o 't6.tex'
replot

shell> pdflatex t6.tex : OK

============================================================
SESSION 6

plot sin(x)
set label "Hello $\int e^{-x}$" at 0,0
set t tikz standalone
set o 't7.tex'
replot

shell> pdflatex t7.tex :

Preview: Fontsize 10pt
Preview: PDFoutput 1

Overfull \hbox (10.65929pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 561--561
[][] 
Preview: Tightpage 0 0 0 0
[1{/var/lib/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map}])
*