Re: Contour plots

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

Ethan Merritt wrote:
> On Friday 28 January 2005 12:41 am, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:
> 
>>*) I'm strictly against any GUI-only feature.  Once we have a suitable
>>command line method of specifying the locus of those contour labels, we 
>>can think of a mouse interaction method of doing the same.  We may even 
>>have to keep in mind that a GUI should be possible while setting up the 
>>command line syntax.  But command line is still *mandatory*.
> 
> 
> I think you are looking at this from the wrong direction.
> A script to label contout plots is not a "GUI-only feature",
> it is an example of a higher-level application you can build
> on top of gnuplot's core functionality.

I tried to find any way in which this statement of yours disagrees with 
mine, which you seem to be saying it does.  I failed.  I guess we must
have misunderstood each other, so let me expand on what I was trying to 
say here.

My comment was aimed against previous ones which apparently wanted to do 
this as an internal job of the mouse interface (e.g. draw the label 
locus curve with a mouse drag), but didn't mention any way of making the 
result survive the gnuplot session (or even the next plot command).  I'm 
saying I'm strictly against such a plan, just in case anybody is 
seriously considering doing it that way.  OTOH, it would be perfectly 
okay for mouse interaction to generate an ordinary, scriptable and 
savable command, just like the vast majority of the current mouse 
interactions do.

> I suspect that creating a general contour-labelling algorithm is
> hard enough, and speciallized enough, that it does not belong 
> inside gnuplot.  

Well, I don't see anything stopping someone from doing such an a program 
(along with generating the contours themselves, while at it) outside 
gnuplot, right now.  But then, I'm sure I don't grasp all the fine 
details of what the mouse interface can currently do.