Re: [Gnuplot-info] non-working linewidth and dashpattern in epslatex terminal?

[Ethan M. <eam...@gm...>]

On Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 6:38 AM, David Kastrup <da...@gn...> wrote:

> Ethan A Merritt <eam...@gm...> writes:
>
> > On Sunday, 15 October 2017 10:53:08 Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> >> On Sunday, 15 October 2017 13:06:50 David Kastrup wrote:
> >> >
> >> > So I now tried compiling 5.2.0.
> >> >
> >> > No change in the epslatex terminal: it would appear that _only_ the
> >> > linewidth and the dash pattern for linestyle 1 are ever consulted and
> >> > are used for _all_ lines.  Linecolor can be changed per line style,
> but
> >> > pretty much nothing else.
> >>
> >> Correct.  It steps through sequential line colors.
> >>
> >> > Anybody have a good idea for where to patch this up?
> >>
> >> The following 1-line change might or might not produce acceptable
> >> results for you.   One problem is that the line segments making up
> >> a contour are not necessarily drawn in order and some terminals
> >> reset the dash pattern for each segment, leading to mostly solid
> >> or mostly missing lines rather than the desired dash pattern.
> >> For other terminal types this doesn't seem to be a problem.
> >>
> >> If this does work for you please report back.
> >> We could make it an optional setting of some sort.
>
> I don't think following the documentation is "optional".
>
> [snip]

I think I understand what you are expecting from the program, but honestly
it has never worked that way.  Prior to gnuplot version 5  linetypes did not
include a "dashtype" property, so the question of applying or not applying
it
to draw contours was moot.  Linetypes did have a "linewidth" property of
course, but just as now only one linewidth was used for all the contours in
a
plot.  I've gone back and confirmed that for versions 4.4 and 4.6.

When gnuplot version 5 introduced dashtypes, we had to choose whether
for the purposes of drawing contours they would follow the example of
the linecolor property (increment for each contour level) or linewidth
property (same for the entire plot).   There was no strong advocacy either
way
and we ended up choosing to treat it as analogous to linewidth.

You are now, as I understand it, advocating that both the linewidth and
dashtype
properties should act as the linecolor does.  I'm fine with adding that as
a user-specified option, but it would be something new rather than a return
to
what any previous gnuplot version did.

Note:  Your expectation may be colored by past behaviour of the postscript
terminal driver.  Prior to gnuplot version 5 the postscript terminal
acted differently from all other terminal types.  One of the goals set for
version
5 was to get all terminals to behave as consistently as possible, even at
the
cost of losing exact backwards compatibility.  Normally backwards
compatibility
has the highest priority, so the 4->5 transition was highly unusual in that
regard.