Pre-release testing version of gnuplot 6.0.5

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

I have placed a testing version of the source release
package for gnuplot 6.0.4 on the "testing" section of the
SourceForge download site.

    https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuplot/files/gnuplot/testing/

My tentative plan is to announce the actual release in about
two weeks (end of July).  That can be pushed back if you find
any problems or want more time to test on other platforms.

Brief release notes below, or see 
     gnuplot.sourceforge.net/ReleaseNotes_6_0_5.html

%%%%%%%%%%    6.0.5 Release Notes July 2026   %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

New features

* Full mousing support for multiplots
  - all panels report mouse coordinates
  - all panels respond to pan/zoom/rotate mouse movement and hotkeys
  - "replot" reexecutes multiplot commands starting from current state
  - "remultiplot" restores the original state before reexecuting multiplot
  - interactive mousing remains active after ^C or "reset"

* Unicode escape sequences \U+xxxx are accepted in more contexts
  - escape sequences are expanded in "noenhanced" strings
  - escape sequences are expanded during substring evaluation
  - escape sequences are expanded in string functions strstrt() and strlen()

* New built-in function prod [<var> = <start> : <end>] <expression>
  - implements the sequential product operation
             prod [i=a:b] f(i)   =   f(a) * f(a+1) * ... * f(b)

* Data files in EUC-JP encoding can be processed from other environments
  - If running in a EUC-JP locale, use "set encoding locale"
  - If running in a different locale, use "set encoding eucjp"
  - In either case, this affects only input data.  It does not change
    the encoding (usually UTF-8) written to plots on output.

* New coloring option for contourfill
  - Arbitrary discrete color ranges can be define without using a special palette
        set contourfill defined [zmin1:zmax1] color1, [zmin2:zmax2] color2, ...

* Allow "string"[i] as shorthand for "string"[i:i]

Changed behaviour

* Trailing whitespace on the command line is now ignored on input.
  This means that the line-continuation character '\' is effective even
  if it is followed by an unintentional blank.

* Octal escape sequences must conform to the documented form \ooo
  - E.g. \7 or \0106 or \456 or \0 are now rejected

* "plot with labels" now accepts the "noenhanced" keyword

Bug fixes

* qt: Slow font initialization on Windows                       #Bug# 2316 2476
* gd: Resolved long-standing font handling problems.            #Bug# 2819
  - requires recent library versions (libgd 2.4.0 libraqm 0.10.3)
* Better tic placement on logscale axis spanning two decades    #Bug# 2856
* Always clear previous plot title before a new plot is started #Bug# 2865
* Endpoint errors due to floating point precision               #Bug# 2768
* Repaired axis range parsing in parametric mode broken by change in 6.0.4
* Reworked logic for extending the command buffer incrementally on input.
  Long input lines with backslash continuation could lead to corruption
  of the command string if encountered early in program execution.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

cheers,
	Ethan