Re: Metapost term and solid filling

[Andrzej <wa...@ga...>]

Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker <at> physik.rwth-aachen.de> writes:
> As is explained somewhere in the docs (or so I think...), not all terminal
> drivers support all features of gnuplot.  metapost, e.g., has a boxfill
> function, but that predates the addition of filled boxes plotting style to
> gnuplot by several years --- it's from the time when the only usage of
> term->fillbox was by the 'clear' command, to clear an area for an inset
> plot.

So, if I get you right, some kind of fix would not be out of scope here.

> It's still incomplete, though: you should support patterned fill styles,
> too.

Yeah. I see the point. This may actually be a problem. I have no clue, how
patterns interface works and there seems to be no simple way to fill with
patterns in MetaPost (besides drawing the patterns explicitly). There are some
packages around, but I guess gnuplot should not depend on them, so there is some
 more effort to put in here.

> > My question is: why is this not implemented this way? 
> 
> Simple: because nobody sat down and implemented it.  This is open source,
> which means that in the essence nothing ever gets done until somebody
> mounts up the initiative to do it.

This is not quite the answer, I expected. I guess I am exactly yhe guy, who
tries to sit down and implement the thing. I meant: is there any technical
reason making this simple hack would not work?

Is the gnuplot project interested in patches of this kind, or shall I just keep
them in my private set of patches to gnuplot? If there is some interest, what is
the usual procedure? Sourceforge patches or posting for discussion here first?

Andrzej