Re: key patch update

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

On Tuesday 09 November 2004 06:06 pm, Daniel J Sebald wrote:
> One thing that threw me in the plot--that made me not conclude the key 
> samples should be associated with each cluster of bars--is the fact that 
> it is one key.  Wouldn't you prefer multiple boxed keys?  Say as in the 
> mock up:
> 
> http://acer-access.com/~ds...@ac.../gnuplot/sample_2_keys.png

Absolutely! That would be great.  I had been fumbling my way towards
recoding the key layout so that it was generic, and then allowing multiple
keys.  My intent was to modify the 'set key' command to:
    set key {<n>} ...
And allow each plot to specify which key it's title was placed in:
    plot 'foo' with lines key 1, 'bar' with lines key 2, 'blech' key 1

> My guess is that programming multiple keys wouldn't be too bad. 
>  However, the syntax would be something tricky.  Perhaps:
> 
> set key <...>
> set key 1 <...>
> set key 2 <...>
> unset key 2 <...>
> 
> These are the sorts of commands for declaring multiple keys.  (The "set 
> key" without a number is the same as "set key 1".)
> 
> But the big question is how does one make a connection between what is 
> on the plot and how it ends up in the key?  Maybe:
> 
> plot 'this.file" u 1:2 key 1, 'this.file' u 1:3 k 1, 'that.file' u 1:2 
> key 2, 'that.file' u 1:3 k 2

You and I are on the same wavelength on this one.
I wasn't progressing very fast on the project, however.
Mostly I had just been trying to collect all the variables having to
do with the key layout into a single structure, so that later on I
could have multiple such structures to support multiple keys.
That was a while ago.  I got sidetracked by the string variables
code.



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