Re: gnuplot with libgd for Windows?

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

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Subject: Re: gnuplot with libgd for Windows?
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In article <c4ufmb$gi3$1...@ne...>,
Hans-Bernhard Broeker  <br...@ph...> wrote:
>
>I've finally budged and got me a copy of that GD DLL onto a Windows
>machine to look at it myself.  Turns out my initial suspicition was
>mostly right --- the global symbols for those fonts aren't being
>exported by the DLL, so they're not present in the import lib.
>
>Looks like we will have to use those getter functions, after all, *if*
>they're available.  And the static initializers will probably have to
>go, too ;-(

These minimal built-in fonts are provided as fall-backs in the case
that better ones are not provided by the operating environment.
Are there any Windows systems for which TrueType fonts would
not be available?  Maybe the fix is as simple as removing these
fall-back cases under Windows.

>Dammit --- why, oh why is it that this kind of fatal blow *always* has
>to occur so short before a planned release date?

One other thought - is it possible to build a tiny extra dll on
the side that exports the required symbols, even if this extra
dll is an ugly hack?  It could use the getter functions and then
turn around and export the pointers as expected by external apps.
That would allow the gnuplot source to stay in its current state for
a version 4 release, while still providing a working Windows binary.

-- 
Ethan A Merritt       merritt@u.washington.edu
Biomolecular Structure Center
Mailstop 357742
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195