Feature question: waiting on a plot window

[Dima K. <gn...@di...>]

Hi.

I'm looking for a feature that (I think) doesn't exist currently. Want
to ask first, in case something DOES exist that I'm not seeing.

A number of applications that make plots use gnuplot as a backend. The
sequence you want there is:

1. User says "make a plot"

2. Application tells gnuplot to make a plot

3. gnuplot does its thing using an interactive terminal (x11, qt, wxt,
   ...) and a plot window pops up

4. user looks at the plot, then closes the window when they're done, and
   wants to continue using the application

The issue here is that currently the application (parent of the
"gnuplot" process) has no way of knowing when the user finished looking
at the plot, which necessitates ugly workarounds. For instance with
gnuplotlib I can write a script that just makes a plot. If I just call
gnuplotlib.plot(), then the application will make a plot and then exit
immediately. As a workaround I put a sleep(10000) after the plot() call.
I'd like to have some sort of gnuplotlib.wait() that blocks until
gnuplot is done. Maybe gnuplot can be asked to print something on the
console when the client window is closed, or something? Thoughts?