Set pagesize [was Re: Clipping of arrows buggy]

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

On Wednesday 19 January 2005 08:38 am, Harald Harders wrote:
> After Dan's mail, I have had the same idea. I think it is a good idea that
> screen should be in the range 0<=screen<=1. But it should also be possible
> to change the size of the page as well. This could then also apply to
> other terminals as x11. I volunteer to add at least the basis of a
> 'set pagesize' command. I also will add support to some terminals that I
> understand. I then will need some help to support all terminals.

I don't understand how this is intended to work.
You have changed all the places that currently refer to
term->xmax or term->ymax so that they refer to some
global variable instead.   But what about terminals that
maintain their own values for xmax and ymax (e.g. X11)?

I think you *have* to use the value provided by the terminal.
You can't just assume that you managed to set it to something
else.  What about output to a printer?  You can't change the
page size other than maybe feeding it an extra long piece of
paper.

> This patch has only been tested with postscript and png
> terminal. 

How do you see this option interacting with explicit
size specifications like
   set term png size 800,400

Does your new pagesize apply multiplicatively to these?
Does it override them?

> I know that it does not change the window 
> size in x11 which it should do. But I really don't know
> how gnuplot and gnuplot_x11 talk to each other. gnuplot
> should send a message to gnuplot_x11 to resize the
> window after using 'set pagesize'.

gnuplot does not control the size of the X window, so
there is a serious problem there.  Are you proposing that
we change the code so that a user can not resize the X window
by click-and-drag with the mouse?  If the user changes the
size using the mouse, then what?  Does this feed back to
the main code of gnuplot and change the values of pagesize?


I see that your patch touches many terminal types.
If you have to change them anyhow, would it not make
more sense just to add explicit size specs for the 
terminal types that already support it?
I.e.   png, svg, fig  and probably others
alread accept a size specification as an option to
"set term".  Why not just add this to other terminals
as desired, assuming they support it at all.



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