Re: minitics patch

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

On Thursday 11 August 2005 02:40 pm, Eddie Kohler wrote:
> One portion of the minitics patch isn't obsoleted, as far as I can  
> tell.  This is the code that can place minitics automatically when  
> tics were placed explicitly.  Here's a demo:
>  
> set logscale y
> set yrange [1:10000]
> set xrange [0:100]
> set mytics 10
> set ytics ("10^0" 1,"10^1" 10,"10^2" 100,"10^3" 1000,"10^4" 10000)
> plot x**2

Is this intended to produce a different output than the current
version does using:

 set logscale y
 set yrange [1:10000]
 set xrange [0:100]
 set mytics 10
# set ytics ("10^0" 1,"10^1" 10,"10^2" 100,"10^3" 1000,"10^4" 10000)
 set format y "10^%L"
 plot x**2

I.e., is the only effect of the patch to *not* turn off minor tics
in the presence of user labels?  If so, then it seems like it could
be done either by using the 'set format' statement, or by a 1-line
change to the existing code.

> So what about a patch like this?
> 
> - Update `set mxtics` documentation to say that explicit minitic  
> placement can be achieved with `set xtics`

Sure.  If the current docs are confusing, let's fix them.
Also think about whether adding an explicit index entry would help
(the cvs version of the docs makes an index).

> - Remove explicit `set mxtics (pos1,pos2,...)` syntax

You mean remove it from your earlier patch?
That syntax is not currently legal in the cvs code.

> - Allow syntax such as `set mxtics FREQ {, MAJFREQ {, OFFSET}}`,  
> which will place FREQ minitics between every "major tic", where  
> "major tics" are defined as occuring at OFFSET + i*MAJFREQ for all i.

You lost me there. I thought that's what the current code already
does. Please post a sample plot that illustrates what you are aiming
for. It's OK to dummy it up by hand; I just want to see what the goal is.  

There's another issue that is lurking. I don't see on the face of it how
you could mix manual placement of major tics with auto-generation of
intervening minor tics.  Would each interval have a different 
spacing of tics?  That seems really strange.  And if the intervals
are the same, then I think the current code can handle this already
by clever use of the "set format" statement.  Post a sample plot
and I'll see if I can come up with a way to generate it with the
current command set. 






> 
> Eddie
> 
> 
> 
> On Aug 11, 2005, at 1:42 PM, Ethan Merritt wrote:
> 
> > On Thursday 11 August 2005 12:37 pm, Eddie Kohler wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Over three years ago Harald Harders and I submitted a patch that
> >> supports explicit minitics, as well as minitics when tics are
> >> supplied explicitly.
> >>
> >
> > I guess I am confused about the history of this proposal.
> > I was under the impression that the original idea was to allow
> > user placement of tics at various levels (major/minor/...), and
> > that this feature had in fact been accepted into the cvs version
> > in Dec 2003 and became part of the version 4.0 release.
> >
> > What additional feature is offered by the present patch?
> > I just downloaded and looked at it, but the only description I
> > see is 2 short paragraphs in gnuplot.doc   And frankly, I do
> > not understand from that description what it allows that is not
> > already possible using a command like:
> >
> >  set xtics ("Major" 1.0 1, "Minor" 1.5 2, \
> >             "Major" 2.0 1, "Minor" 2.5 2)
> >
> > Does it allow additional tic levels?
> > Does it actually use the label strings that the current command
> > accepts but then apparently ignores?
> >
> > So it may well be a "cool project", but at least to me it is
> > not obvious what it does.  Could you provide an updated
> > sales pitch?
> >
> >     thanks
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> It's simple and adds obviously missing
> >> functionality in what seems a pretty sensible way.  It was not
> >> applied because the whole subsystem should be redone, or some such
> >> reason, I don't remember exactly what.  Of course the subsystem has
> >> not been redone and three years have passed.
> >>
> >> It's frustrating to try to contribute to a cool project and get
> >> neither traction nor feedback.  Could someone just go ahead and apply
> >> a version of sourceforge patch #1104018 (the current version of
> >> #594815/#835235), or tell us how improve the patch?
> >>
> >> Thanks very much, and sorry for the frustration.
> >> Eddie Kohler
> >> UCLA
> >>
> >>
> >
> > -- 
> > Ethan A Merritt       merritt@u.washington.edu
> > Biomolecular Structure Center
> > Mailstop 357742
> > University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
> >
> >
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> 
> 

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