Re: Default fillstyle for 'set rectangle' is slightly wrong

[Ethan A M. <me...@uw...>]

On Friday, 1 May 2020 15:38:15 PDT Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> On Friday, 1 May 2020 14:04:22 PDT Dima Kogan wrote:
> > Hi. The docs (help fillstyle) say that the default fillstyle is "empty".
> > But this isn't what's happening:
> > 
> >   set grid
> >   set object rectangle from 0,0 to 1,1
> >   plot [-1:2][-1:2] x
> > 
> > Note that the grid lines do not show up behind the rectangle. If I
> > explicitly add "fillstyle empty" to the rectangle definition, you get
> > the transparent rectangle.
> 
> Going way back to the initial implementation of rectangle as objects,
> the default was "solid fill with background color", which is not the
> same thing as "empty". This is true for all object types.
> 
> gnuplot> help set style rectangle
>  Rectangles defined with the `set object` command can have individual styles.
>  However, if the object is not assigned a private style then it inherits a
>  default that is taken from the `set style rectangle` command.
>  [snip]
>  The default values correspond to solid fill with the background color and a
>  black border. 
> 
> The idea was to have separate global fill styles for each object type.
> In retrospect that might not have been the best idea, but that's what we have.
> In retrospect it might also have been better to have all global fill styles
> start with the same default.
> 
> What do you think?
> Is it worth breaking backward compatibility to change this?
> I'm inclined to say yes, but only in the development verion, not for 5.4.   
> Do away with separate fillstyles?
> Keep them but give them all the same default properties?

After some thought, I'm coming around to thinking that if we do change it,
5.4 would be a good time.   It could be a bullet point in the Release Notes

o CHANGE - objects (rectangles, circles, etc) now default to fillstyle "empty"
                    rather than solid fill with background color.   

	Ethanμ