Policy question - to PM3D or not to PM3D?

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

I've been working on a more complete set of options for
controlling the color of a line separately from its dot/dash 
pattern.  Details when I finish polishing it a bit more.

The question at hand is the following.
This code (and the earlier RGB color code and filled-curve code)
is implemented on top of some of the PM3D data structures and
utility routines. Therefore the new options are only available
if gnuplot is built with  ./configure --enable-pm3d

But the ability to separate line color and dot/dash has
nothing intrinsically to do with PM3D, and arguably the
ability to specify individual rgb colors doesn't either.

Which is preferable?

(1) Leave the new options dependent on PM3D

(2) Move the data structures and utility routines out of the
    #ifdef PM3D  brackets, so that the new feature are available
    even if for some reason you don't want PM3D

Leaving things the way they are is obviously less work, but it
kind of offends my sense of esthetics to have useful code features
unecessarily dependent on unrelated options. 



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