Re: pslatex code contaminating the gnuplot core

[Harald H. <h.h...@tu...>]

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:

> Ethan Merritt wrote:
>
> > Yes, but no other terminal driver that I know of interprets this as
> > meaning that the back labels are underneath *everything* else.
>
> Well, it's not really the terminal drivers that are doing that job
> at all.  So far, "layers" are implemented only by the core.  The
> terminal drivers don't know what the core is doing.  It's this lack of
> knowledge that is causing the problem at hand in epslatex.  It could be
> hacked around inside the driver, e.g. by outputting the \includegraphics
> line the moment the core issues the first non-text command to the
> terminal, but I think I'd prefer a term->set_layer() over such an approach.

Yes, I have tried to find another solution, but I did not know a better
workaround than this one.

> That would essentially mean the {e}pslatex type of driver is a lost
> cause.  Given the very high opinion about its usefulness everybody seems
> to share, esp. after its recent overhaul, I find it hard to accept such
> a point of view.
>
> Epslatex with a separate PostScript file, unless changed somewhat
> radically, to support more than one graphical output file to be
> intermixed with the texts, will be inherently limited in its support of
> a more generalized layering of gnuplot's output, but I don't agree that
> we shouldn't even try to support such ordering because of that.

I have also thought of splitting the graphic part of the output. But this
would mean to have three output files which would be a bad thing. I am
aware that the 'back' option in the epslatex terminal is different than in
other terminals. Of course, it would be nice if the 'back' option would
behave as in the other terminals. But it is still better if it works at
least similarly and allows the user to place labels behind portions of the
graph than to ignore the 'back' option at all.

Thus, we really should find a good solution for this implementation
problem without removing the feature 'back' in epslatex.

Regards
Harald

-- 
Harald Harders
h.h...@tu...
http://www.harald-harders.de