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[Plplot-cvs] SF.net SVN: plplot:[12730] trunk
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From: <ai...@us...> - 2013-11-21 02:52:09
|
Revision: 12730
http://sourceforge.net/p/plplot/code/12730
Author: airwin
Date: 2013-11-21 02:52:05 +0000 (Thu, 21 Nov 2013)
Log Message:
-----------
Reorganize news files a bit more.
Modified Paths:
--------------
trunk/NEWS
Added Paths:
-----------
trunk/OLDER-NEWS
Removed Paths:
-------------
trunk/doc/NEWS
Modified: trunk/NEWS
===================================================================
--- trunk/NEWS 2013-11-21 02:51:25 UTC (rev 12729)
+++ trunk/NEWS 2013-11-21 02:52:05 UTC (rev 12730)
@@ -15,5 +15,8 @@
http://plplot.sourceforge.net/announce/announce-plplot-5.2.1.html
http://plplot.sourceforge.net/announce/announce-plplot-5.1.0.html
-For extremely old release notes for PLplot-5.1.0
-and previous see OLD-NEWS.
+For release notes for 4.99j (some also covered in slightly different
+format in OLDER-NEWS) through PLplot-5.1.0, see OLD-NEWS.
+
+For key e-mails from 1993 to the release announcement for 5.0.2 see
+OLDER-NEWS.
Copied: trunk/OLDER-NEWS (from rev 12726, trunk/doc/NEWS)
===================================================================
--- trunk/OLDER-NEWS (rev 0)
+++ trunk/OLDER-NEWS 2013-11-21 02:52:05 UTC (rev 12730)
@@ -0,0 +1,1316 @@
+This file is a concatanation of Major PLplot announcements (mostly about
+releases) in reverse chronological order.
+
+**************************************************************************
+Version 5.0.2: Release announcement
+**************************************************************************
+
+From ir...@uv... Thu Feb 15 09:40:02 2001
+Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 14:22:30 -0800 (PST)
+From: Alan W. Irwin <ir...@uv...>
+To: plplot_general <plp...@li...>
+Subject: [Plplot-general] plplot-5.0.2 has been released
+
+It has been a month since PLplot-5.0.1, and we thought another stable
+release was appropriate at this time.
+
+Get this new PLplot-5.0.2 as a tarball file release at
+http://sourceforge.net/projects/plplot. It was created from the current CVS
+head which has benefited quite a lot from steady bug fixing over the last
+month (for example, file familying now works, and the plmeta now properly
+outputs to pipes).
+
+Version 5.0.2 supersedes all previous versions. Please note that for
+improved stability you should use the tarball release and not the CVS HEAD.
+(We try things on the HEAD which might momentarily break plplot from time to
+time.)
+
+Note we also have some innovation in the new release as well as bug fixing.
+
+(1) The python xw??.py examples should now work right out of the box without
+fooling around with PYTHONPATH.
+
+(2) Install file locations now conform to the FHS. So, for example, you
+will find the examples installed at $prefix/share/doc/plplot/examples.
+
+(3) The content of the documentation source has been greatly improved from
+5.0.1. We have now completely finished going through the doc directory for
+several generations of notes on various topics and incorporated all this
+material (with substantial updates and expansions) into our docbook source.
+The result is new docbook sections/chapters on devices, driver functions,
+plrender and metafiles, familying, interactive output devices, color, and C
+and fortran bindings. We have added API sections that are specialized to C
+and fortran. We have also added a bibliography and reorganized the material
+so that all the reference material (bibliography and API sections) appear at
+the back of the document. We have now removed virtually all the old files
+in doc so there is no longer the potential of getting confused with these
+older generations of documentation.
+
+We don't anticipate the addition of too many more chapters or sections to
+the documentation, but some refinement of the existing chapters/sections
+still needs to be done. If you are interested in helping with this effort,
+please contact yours truly (ir...@be...).
+
+(4) Our DocBook source can be built into PLplot documentation in a variety
+of formats (currently html, dvi, postscript, pdf, info, and man). Our CVS
+does not have these files because they are generated rather than source
+files. However, you can always get the latest forms of these results from
+http://www.plplot.org/resources/docbook-manual/, and for your convenience we
+have also bundled these results into the doc directory of the 5.0.2 tarball.
+
+Tests:
+
+Release version 5.0.2 has been extensively tested on Debian potato with
+double precision configured. The cdemos, cxxdemos (c++), fdemos (fortran),
+tcldemos, tkdemos, and the new standalone xw??.py python demos all now work
+well on potato. Similar tests show good results on RedHat 6.2 except for
+Tcl/Tk whose 8.0 version on RH 6.2 is too old for us to support. We have not
+yet upgraded our test box to RedHat 7.0 (which does include a Tcl/Tk/iTcl
+version that we support), and until we do this upgrade, we would appreciate
+any RedHat 7.0 reports our users could give us. Similar tests (excluding
+Tcl/Tk and python because we would have had to download configure, build,
+and install these packages ourselves) show good results on solaris (SunOS
+5.6 Generic_105181-23 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2 = solaris 2.6).
+
+Putting on my yplot (http://sourceforge.net/projects/yplot) hat momentarily,
+I have also rebuilt yplot, the convenient yorick front end to plplot. The
+new yplot version (to be released soon) is based on plplot-5.0.2 libraries,
+and I have just confirmed it gives excellent results for a wide variety of
+36 different scientific plots from my present research.
+
+Please send bug reports, comments, and questions to this list, and
+have fun (and profit) with the new 5.0.2 release of plplot!
+
+Alan W. Irwin
+
+email: ir...@be...
+phone: 250-727-2902 FAX: 250-721-7715
+snail-mail:
+Dr. Alan W. Irwin
+Department of Physics and Astronomy,
+University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055,
+Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8W 3P6
+__________________________
+
+Linux-powered astrophysics
+__________________________
+
+
+**************************************************************************
+Version 5.0.1: Release announcement
+**************************************************************************
+
+From: "Alan W. Irwin" <ir...@uv...>
+To: plplot_general <plp...@li...>
+Subject: [Plplot-general] plplot-5.0.1 has been released.
+Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 08:59:42 -0800 (PST)
+
+Get this new stable version as a tarball file release at
+http://sourceforge.net/projects/plplot. It was created from the current
+CVS head which has benefited quite a lot from steady bug fixing over the
+last few months. Version 5.0.1 supersedes all previous versions.
+(Please note that for stability you should use the tarball release and
+not the CVS HEAD. We ordinarily make no guarantees about the stability of
+the HEAD since we want to be free to try things on the HEAD which might
+break plplot from time to time.)
+
+Note we also have some innovation in the new release as well as bug fixing.
+
+(1) The documentation building process has been changed completely over to
+DocBook 4.1 XML. To see the nice html, postscript, pdf, dvi, info, and man
+results of this effort, please look at
+http://www.plplot.org/resources/docbook-manual/
+
+(2) The content of the documentation source has been greatly improved from
+previous versions. However, more work is always needed on documentation
+content, and if you have an interest in helping out with this aspect of
+plplot, please contact yours truly (Alan W. Irwin).
+
+(3) The header file style has been changed to be similar to that of X. That
+is every header file reference in source should have the prefix plplot, e.g.,
+
+#include "plplot/plConfig.h"
+
+This gives much less potential for nameclashes, if the headers are stored in,
+e.g., /usr/include/plplot. It also means that the -I parameter stays the
+same as it was before on the compile line.
+
+(4) The library names have been changed so they are in a more consistent style
+now that gives more protection against nameclashes. All library tags
+(suffixes to the core name of libplplot, libplmatrix, etc.) are
+now gone except for d for double precision and nothing for single precision
+or the libplmatrix library (which is always single precision even if
+you have configured double precision). To indicate what the library names
+that were used to build plrender, execute the installed
+$prefix/bin/plplot_linkage. On my current system this emits the following
+line:
+-L/usr/local/plplot/lib -lplplotd -lplmatrix -litk3.1 -ltk8.2 -litcl3.1
+-ltcl8.2 -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11 -lvga -ldl -lm -lg2c -Wl,-rpath
+-Wl,/usr/local/plplot/lib
+
+Your system (if it isn't Debian potato) will have a different link line
+emitted by $prefix/bin/plplot_linkage. That is the one to use!
+
+(5) Python now works! (at least in widgetless mode). Configure python (which
+happens by default), and try out the new widgetless examples, xw??.py.
+You will like them! These examples all require double precision. Eventually,
+we plan to add Tk widget capabilities to these examples. Any help
+would be appreciated.
+
+(6) Fortran now works with double precision and Linux! (It always worked
+well with single precision before, but it is nice to have this generality.)
+
+Tests:
+
+Release version 5.0.1 has been extensively tested on Debian potato with double
+precision configured. The cdemos, cxxdemos (c++), fdemos (fortran),
+tcldemos, tkdemos, and the new standalone xw??.py python demos all now work
+well on potato. Similar tests show good results on RedHat 6.2 except for
+Tcl/Tk whose 8.0 version on RH 6.2 is too old for us to support. We have not
+yet upgraded our test box to RedHat 7.0, and until we do, we would
+appreciate any RedHat 7.0 reports our users could give us. We have also been
+able to configure, build, and install the software on a solaris system, but
+so far only minimalist testing has been done on that system.
+
+Putting on my yplot (http://sourceforge.net/projects/yplot) hat momentarily,
+I have recently rebuilt yplot, the convenient yorick front end to plplot.
+The new yplot version (to be released soon) is based on plplot-5.0.1
+libraries, and I have just confirmed it gives excellent results for a wide
+variety of 36 different scientific plots from my present research.
+
+Please send bug reports, comments, and questions to this list, and
+have fun (and profit) with the new 5.0.1 release of plplot!
+
+Alan
+
+email: ir...@be...
+phone: 250-727-2902 FAX: 250-721-7715
+snail-mail:
+Dr. Alan W. Irwin
+Department of Physics and Astronomy,
+University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055,
+Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8W 3P6
+__________________________
+
+Linux-powered astrophysics
+__________________________
+
+**************************************************************************
+Version 5.0.0: Release announcement
+**************************************************************************
+
+From: Geoffrey Furnish <fu...@ac...>
+Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 12:27:34 -0700 (PDT)
+To: plp...@pl...
+Subject: [Plplot-general] PLplot 5.0.0 is released
+
+Greetings to all,
+
+And you thought it would /NEVER/ happen. :-).
+
+I am pleased to announce that PLplot version 5.0.0 has been released.
+The rest of this email will attempt to explain exactly what this means
+in more detail.
+
+First off, thanks to all the core team members who have helped with
+various tasks that I could not attend to. Not the least of which, is
+the simple issue of deciding to do it, right now.
+
+Now for a little background. We are done with the 4.99 x, x=abc...
+business, as well as the dated snapshots. Dated snapshots are being
+replaced by providing anonymous cvs access through plplot.org. So
+anyone who wants to track day-to-day development, or follow progress
+on their patch submissions, etc, will be able to do that by using cvs.
+
+In addition to that, we will provide real releases which are supposed
+to be stable, or at least to get stable over a short time. The
+releasing naming conventions will follow the Linux tradition. Even
+releases are supposed to be stable, and only bug fixes and
+stabilization patches will be applied to these. Thus, 5.0.0 is the
+first in this strain. If people find minor little nits that need
+fixing, this will result in 5.0.1, 5.0.2, etc. We hope it doesn't get
+too far... Ongoing feature development will proceed in the 5.1
+strain.
+
+The release and versioning business is coordinated with cvs in the
+following manner. Stable releases go on a branch. Ongoing
+development continues on the cvs head. To be really cvs technical, we
+provide a branch point tag, a branch tag, and release tags. So, to be
+totally explicit, I did the following operations today when preparing
+the 5.0.0 release:
+
+1) cvs tag bp_v5_0
+2) cvs rtag -b -r bp_v5_0 v5_0 plplot
+3) cvs tag v5_0_0
+4) cvs export -r v5_0_0 plplot
+5) mv plplot/ plplot-5.0.0
+6) tar cvzf plplot-5.0.0.tar.gz plplot-5.0.0/
+
+Step 1 labels the state of the repository at the point in time when we
+fork the 5.0 release branch. The name of the branch point for the 5.0
+release, is bp_v5_0. Step 2 creates a cvs "branch tag" for referring
+to the head of this branch. The name of this tag is v5_0. Step 3
+creates a tag for the specific release 5.0.0, with tag name v5_0_0.
+In the current case, there were no changes made between any of these
+steps, so steps 1, 2, and 3 all refer to the same versions of the
+files. But as we move on from here, people who wish to participate in
+stabilizing the 5.0 branch will need to check out the head of this
+branch via:
+
+ cvs co -r v5_0 plplot
+
+Then they can do stabilization oriented development, submit context
+diffs, and the core team will apply these patches, and eventually at
+various points along the way, we will tag v5_0_1, v5_0_2, etc. So,
+the thing to understand here is that "v5_0" is the branch tag. It is
+a floating reference, which alwasy points to the head of this branch.
+Non branch tags just refer to static file versions, labelling a single
+specific collection of file versions for all of time.
+
+Henceforth, the main line of deveopment, which we will call 5.1,
+proceeds on the cvs head. There is no branch tag for this. To see
+the ongoing develoment work on the 5.1 branch, just do:
+
+ cvs co plplot
+
+Use update to track ongoing work, etc. We may possibly tag a few
+interesting points along the way as v5_1_0, v5_1_1, etc, but there
+will not be a branch tag for this. Eventually, when 5.1 development
+seems to have run its course, we will fork another branch for 5.2,
+making a new branch point tag bp_v5_2, a branch tag v5_2 to refer to
+the head of the branch holding the 5.2 release strain, and occasional
+tags for specific 5.2.x releases.
+
+Hopefully that is comprehensible to people with a cvs background. See
+the CVS faq for more background. We'll try to put this kind of info
+on the web site somewhere as we get better organized.
+
+Anyway, in addition to the cvs access mechanisms described above, we
+also are providing the 5.0.0 release as a .tar.gz file. Steps 4, 5,
+and 6 show exactly how this was created, guaranteeing that the
+plplot-5.0.0.tar.gz file contains exactly the file versions that were
+tagged as v5_0_0 in step 3, but omitting the CVS control information.
+This tarball release is appropriate for people who just want the code
+in a packaged form, and aren't interested in tracking the cvs
+development specifically, or even in using cvs to fetch identified
+versions. This file has been uploaded to the plplot.org ftp site.
+You can get it via:
+
+ /ano...@ft...:/pub/plplot/plplot-5.0.0.tar.gz
+
+Eventually we will get the www.plplot.org web site updated to reflect
+this, and also figure out how to identify this file release on the
+sourceforge.net project page for plplot. Someone will post messages
+about that as we progress in these other areas.
+
+Anyway, the bottom line is, right now you can get PLplot 5.0.0, either
+by anonymous ftp, or by anonymous cvs.
+
+Now for a word about the contents of 5.0.0.
+
+The main thing that has happened over the past three years since I
+escaped graduate school, is that we've been trying to fix bugs in the
+autoconf support, and in the Tcl/Tk driver, and in color handling of
+the X driver. There have been a great many bugs rooted out of the
+system over this period of time, and I would encourage all PLplot
+users worldwide, to upgrade to 5.0.0 at this time. This release is
+known to work with 8.x strain Tcl/Tk releases, Itcl 3 releases, Python
+1.5, etc. The problems with X color management are believed to be
+resolved in a manner that is generally satisfactory (there's always
+room for improvement in this area, but the current state is a big leg
+up over where it was before in the 4.99j or in the early snapshots).
+And numerous patch submissions from users worldwide have been
+integrated (although admittedly there are more outstanding, pending
+core team review). There is also a new Mac driver by Rob Managan.
+Currently just the necessary source and doc files, but we will get his
+Mac CW project support goods uploaded to ftp.plplot.org at some point
+too. So, there's been lots of improvement since the last release, and
+I hope people will endeavor to upgrade to this new version. If things
+go wrong, please submit patches to sourceforge.net, and we'll work on
+getting it stabilized.
+
+In the midst of such endeavors, please note the distinction between
+bug fixes to 5.0.x, and feature development for ongoing 5.1. The new
+stuff is going to go into 5.1. 5.0.x is really there just to have an
+up to date stable and official release for those who don't want to
+track ongoing development. As such, don't expect major new features
+to appear in 5.0.x releases, just fixes that relate to platform
+support, minor bugs, etc.
+
+So, what lays ahead for 5.1? Well, like I said before, that depends a
+lot on what people contribute. My personal actions will focus in the
+short term on better Tcl package participation and improved Python
+module interaction. But there are more drivers in the works, web
+integration opportunities, more plot types, variations, and viewing
+overhauls, etc, that various people have expressed interest in. More
+news as it happens.
+
+Remember that you can track it all by subscribing to
+pl...@pl..., or by reviewing the lists chronology in
+geocrawler. Or, you can use the cvs history command (also easily
+accessible in Emacs fromt he version control pane), to see what people
+are doing, track your patch submissions to see when they get in, etc.
+
+Cheers to all,
+
+--
+Geoffrey Furnish Actel Corporation fu...@ac...
+Senior Staff Engineer 955 East Arques Ave voice: 408-522-7528
+Placement & Routing Sunnyvale, CA 94086-4533 fax: 408-522-8041
+
+"... because only those who write the code truly control the project."
+ -- Jamie Zawinski
+
+_______________________________________________
+
+**************************************************************************
+Historic PLplot reorganization (at sourceforge) message
+**************************************************************************
+
+From: Geoffrey Furnish <fu...@ac...>
+Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 11:57:44 -0700 (PDT)
+To: plp...@pl...
+Subject: [Plplot-general] Welcome to the new era of PLplot!
+
+Hello Everyone,
+
+Welcome to the new era of PLplot!
+
+With many apologies to all for the extreme delays that have been
+incurred over the past months, it gives me great pleasure to be able
+at this time, to finally provide details of the reorganization of the
+PLplot project.
+
+As most of you know, PLplot was hosted at dino.ph.utexas.edu during
+the time that Maurice and I were employed at the Institute for Fusion
+Studies, at the University of Texas at Austin. dino continued as the
+host for PLplot after we each moved on, but we were searching for a
+suitable place to relocate the project. As I am sure you all know,
+the open source software movement has gained a lot of steam in recent
+times, and there were a number of organizations willing to host
+PLplot. Of course we deeply appreciate the offers of sponsorship
+tendered by all of these organizations. However, it turned out that
+the technical challenges of hosting a project like this, were not fully
+appreciated by all such sponsoring agencies. Curiously, we were a
+little hobbled in a sense, by being just a hair ahead of the curve,
+and wound up sinking significant amounts of effort into rehosting
+PLplot at two sites that ultimately simply didn't have the
+sophistication to quite bring the task to closure.
+
+The final resting place, is sourceforge.net, operated by VA Linux.
+PLplot now has its own domain, plplot.org, and a variety of services
+accessible through this domain. The domain is hosted by
+sourceforge.net. I will explain the current services available
+through this domain below. If anyone in the user base wants to thank
+VA Linux for their sponsorship of the PLplot project, you could send
+email to Chris DiBona <ch...@va...> to express your
+appreciation. Our web site will also contain attribution to this
+effect, once we get it put together.
+
+Now, on to the list of services provided through plplot.org.
+
+First, the new official web site for PLplot is www.plplot.org. Randy
+is the web master, and will be bringing this up as time permits. For
+starters, he has imported the prior PLplot web site by Noel Gorelick,
+and will be expanding from here.
+
+Second, we now export the PLplot CVS repository via anonymous CVS at
+cvs.plplot.org. From now on, anyone will be able to obtain the latest
+version of PLplot using anonymous CVS. CVS has become the darling
+source control system of the open source movement, and deservedly so.
+I won't take the time in this message to attempt to explain this in
+detail. There are other resources on the net, and at sourceforge.net
+in particular, which do this job. The very short story is that you
+can do this:
+ setenv CVSROOT :pserver:ano...@cv...:/cvsroot/plplot
+ cvs login
+ <no password required, just hit return>
+ cvs co plplot
+Once you have done this, you will be able to track ongoing development
+(if you wish) by doing a "cvs update" from time to time.
+
+Third, there will be anonymous ftp as well. We don't have anything up
+there yet, so information will be forthcoming on this once we finally
+put some files up there. Probably we will put up the same files that
+were on dino, providing the historical "releases", and in the future
+we may make pacakged tarballs of future releases. Anyway, more info
+on that once there is something concrete to report.
+
+Fourth, there is a new mailing list, "plp...@pl...". All
+subscribers to the old list (pl...@di...) have been
+transfered to the new list. Also, a few people who've sent me email
+over the last fewmonths have been added as well (that is, the requests
+I could still locate in my inbox :-). You should've just received a
+message from the list manager explaining to you how you can interact
+with it. Sourceforge.net uses "mailman", which is a bit different
+from what we used before (majordomo), but there is plenty to like
+about mailman if you haven't encountered it before. Primarily it
+interacts with subscribers through a web interface, so you have much
+greater personal control over how it interacts with you. In
+particular, I hope that this will finally put an end to the
+desperation "get me off this list" problem we were having before.
+Please, if you want off, just go the mailman management page, and do
+the job! But you can also use it to control numerous delivery options
+including digesting, etc.
+
+One thing that we were not able to do, is to get the old majordomo
+mailing list archives, directly imported into the new list manager.
+We'll probably put those historic list archives up on the anon ftp
+site somewhere so you can still get them if you want. Anyway, mailing
+list traffic from this point forward /is/ being archived, just not
+combined with the old stuff. Oh well.
+
+Anyway, "plp...@pl..." supercedes the old list. The old
+one is down anyway as everyone probably knows. The story on that is
+that dino actually suffered a cataclysmic hardware failure last fall,
+just as we were about to move off to sourceforge. This resulted in
+lost time as we scurried to restore the filesystems, recover the
+PLplot cvs repository, etc. If anybody wants to thank the IFS staffer
+who exerted heroic effort to help us recover from this disaster, you
+could send email to Jim Dibble <di...@pe...>, to
+express your gratitude. He worked really hard to help dig us out of
+that ditch.
+
+Besides "plp...@pl...", there is also
+"plp...@pl...", to which cvs commit messages will be sent
+when developers with write access to the repository commit changes.
+If you haven't used cvs before, let me just say that these commit
+messages are an extremely valuable way to keep abreast of what is
+going on in a software development project. It results in a certain
+amount of email, so if that bothers you, you won't want to be on that
+list (or you should make sure you have a filtering agent so you can
+control the inbound flux to your liking). But if you just want to
+have a very low-overhead way to keep tabs on what is going on, who's
+done what when, who's patches have been applied to the repository,
+etc, subscribing to plp...@pl... is an excellent idea. If
+you are one of the people who makes occasional patch submissions, you
+might want to subscribe at least long enough to watch for when your
+changes go in, for example.
+
+Fifth, there is a "project page" at sourceforge.net:
+ http://sourceforge.net/project/?group_id=2915
+We will probably have a link to this somewhere on the www.plplot.org
+home page. Anyway, people who are tapped into how sourceforge works,
+may find this useful. Frankly, none of the current developers have a
+clue what to do with all this stuff, so we're all learning here, and
+will all have to collectively help educate ourselves about how to get
+the most value out of this. Anyway, one thing that is fairly easy to
+access from here, is a browsable portal onto the CVS repository,
+orchestrated through "CVS Web", modified by sourceforge.net. There is
+lots to explore at sourceforge.net, far more than I am even remotely
+aware of or could convey in this message. We will all have to learn
+together how to best exploit this resource for the open source
+community.
+
+Finally, a word about people. As long time participants on this
+mailing list will remember, there has long been a lot of frustration
+over the difficulty of getting patches into PLplot. This has
+primarily been a function of the fact that Maurice and I are both out
+of the university scene now, holding down real day jobs with real
+professional commitments, and simply haven't been able to provide the
+bandwidth to support the pace of development of an open source project
+like PLplot. We (and here "we" means the entire PLplot community)
+certainly appreciate and have benefited from the valuable
+contributions offered by many over the years, but my personal failure
+to rapidly incorporate everyone's work, has been a key liability for
+the project. Correcting this critical problem, was one of the primary
+goals in seeking a rehosting arrangement for PLplot.
+
+This vision has now FINALLY! been realized. At this time, there are a
+total of five people with write access to the repository:
+
+myself
+Maurice
+Alan W. Irwin
+James Phillips (randy)
+Rafael Laboissiere
+
+Alan and Rafael have been overhauling the documentation of late, and
+that will be showing up for public consumption before long. And Randy
+is picking up the webmaster role.
+
+Exactly how we will deal with inbound patch submissions has not been
+fully worked out, but my point here is, at least /I/ am no longer the
+bottleneck. We have a publicly accessible host, we are exporting the
+CVS repo through anoncvs, and we have multiple people who can act to
+get patches applied. These are the reasons for regarding this as the
+dawn of the new era of PLplot. I would like to take this chance to
+publicly thank Alan, Randy and Rafael for joining Maurice and I in
+this capacity, and for both the work they have already done, and will
+be doing as we move forward.
+
+it has been a long time in coming (too long), but I hope that all
+PLplot users everywhere will share my enthusiasm as we enter the new
+millenium with a revitalized PLplot project.
+
+I suppose in closing, it would be good to say some words about what is
+really going on with the software itself. Curiously, this is the part
+I am least able to address. And in a strange but real sense, that is
+the best part of this message. I have no idea what is ahead of us.
+It really just depends on what the world wide open source developer
+community pulls out of their hats (keyboards).
+
+Onward Ho!
+
+--
+Geoffrey Furnish Actel Corporation fu...@ac...
+Senior Staff Engineer 955 East Arques Ave voice: 408-522-7528
+Placement & Routing Sunnyvale, CA 94086-4533 fax: 408-522-8041
+
+"... because only those who write the code truly control the project."
+ -- Jamie Zawinski
+
+_______________________________________________
+
+
+**************************************************************************
+Version 4.99i: Summary of major changes
+**************************************************************************
+
+Primarily a bug-fix release. Major changes:
+
+- Changed distribution status to GPL/LGPL. See "Copyright". Other
+ administrative file name changes.
+
+- Various small bugs in configure & build fixed.
+
+- Bug in code to keep track of window world coordinates fixed (symptoms:
+ core dump would occur after the 65th page if pleop() was used to end the
+ page rather than pladv()). Thanks to Ian Searle for providing a
+ demonstration of the bug.
+
+- Bugs fixed in core routines + TK driver handling of colormap when
+ saturation = 0; i.e. grayscale plots. Thanks to Radey Shouman for his
+ help.
+
+- Fixed a bug that was preventing the exponential label from showing up
+ under certain circumstances (3-D plots).
+
+- Conex device (tek emulator under DOS) driver support added in tek.c;
+ contributed by Mark Olesen.
+
+- Bug fixed in X driver that was causing a "Bad Match" error upon startup
+ on some systems.
+
+- Postscript driver:
+ Fixed bug in current point update after state change.
+ Fix to allow cmap1 color selections to appear in grayscale;
+ contributed by Radey Shouman.
+
+- Tk driver: Fix to allow a TK main window to be associated with each
+ PLStream (so x14c now can use either the TK or DP driver), also fix to
+ properly update plserver's X-driver when cmap state is
+ changed. Contributed by Radey Shouman.
+
+- pltek: Now checks for the terminal type and provides some rudimentary
+ decisions based on the TERM setting. The xterm is unaffected, but with
+ a terminal type of "tekterm", the 'Page >' prompt is printed on the
+ graphics screen so that the plot can be seen without having pltek flash
+ back to the text screen immediately. Contributed by Mark Olesen.
+
+- Updated DOS/EMX driver provided by Mark Olesen; see sys/dos/emx for
+ more detail.
+
+- Amiga driver: Updated to work with new version. Now has configure
+ script for SKsh users -- is now trivial to configure and build. A
+ fall-back Makefile is also provided. Several bugs fixed, notably one in
+ changing the screen mode. A compiled version of the PLplot library
+ (SAS/C 6.2, IEEE single precision floats, optimized) and plrender are
+ now available in the ~ftp/plplot/amiga directory on dino.ph.utexas.edu.
+
+- The "plpr" script (used when choosing "Print" from Tk driver) now
+ defaults to using color postscript as output.
+
+**************************************************************************
+Version 4.99h: Summary of major changes
+**************************************************************************
+
+This was to be a quick bug fix update, but I got going on several major
+changes plus addition of user contributions. So there are some important
+new capabilities as well as a lot of bug fixes.
+
+Note: as a result of a lack of time, most of the DOS drivers and the Amiga
+driver have not been upgraded to work with the new configure/build files.
+The DOS DJGPP port is one exception. So these are essentially useless
+until these are done. I will issue another beta as soon as these are
+done, hopefully within a week or two.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Configuration, building, and installation:
+
+Completely new configuration script! The new configure script is
+built using GNU autoconf, and great care was taken in its construction.
+Highlights:
+
+1) It is capable of doing basically everything it did before. Packages
+ are included by typing e.g. --enable-tk or --disable-tk, etc. Major
+ options are set by typing e.g. --with-gcc or --without-opt, etc. There
+ is a startup file so you can customize on a per-site basis like before.
+ Although now, shell variables are used to store settings rather than m4
+ variables, and only are substituted in the various files at the end of
+ the configure script.
+
+2) The Makefile components are usable on non-Unix systems. Notably the
+ dependencies -- the Makefile is constructed by concatenating several
+ text files together. The setting of configuration defaults on a
+ non-Unix system is similarly easier than before. Just keep around
+ custom copies of plConfig.h and plDevs.h. It's better to have
+ 'configure' build these for you, of course.
+
+3) The configure script is fully automatic. It should find all the major
+ capabilities needed by PLplot if your system supports them, with no
+ user intervention required.
+
+4) The object file dependency list is now constructed using "gcc -MM"
+ (like "makedepend", only better), making it much more robust.
+
+5) Much better support for shared libraries. Works under HPUX and SunOS
+ now, with Solaris, Irix, OSF-1 probably not far behind if someone wants
+ to fill in the details. AIX probably I will get to, and Geoff has
+ started on the Linux shared library build.
+
+6) The new header file plConfig.h makes it much easier to get portable
+ code, by concentrating all the hacks in one place and using configure
+ to set them accordingly.
+
+See the cf/README file for more info. It works pretty much without
+user intervention now, though.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+The second major addition: a Tcl PLplot API and interpreter. This means
+you can now make PLplot calls from Tcl. An interpreter -- pltcl (an
+extended tclsh) is provided. Be sure to check out the demo programs as
+follows:
+
+foobar% pltcl
+% source demos.tcl
+% 1
+% 2
+
+etc, up through 7. Not all PLplot C API calls are supported by the Tcl
+API yet.
+
+As part of this development a Tcl extension was created to handle matrices
+(arrays). Right now it supports 1-d, 2-d, and 3-d arrays. Eventually
+it will be improved a bit more and better documented and released to
+the Tcl/TK community. For now, read doc/tclMatrix.doc and check
+out the Tcl demos.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Other changes:
+
+- Another major cleanup of the core source files.
+
+- Ability to make point, line, and polygon plots in 3-d added.
+ (Contributed by Geoff Furnish.)
+
+- Changes to support returning the cursor location in world coordinates
+ given a mouse click, if supported by the driver (only used by windows
+ driver so far -- a lot of work remains for the rest of the package to
+ use it). Supports multiple windows per page, and gets the correct set
+ of world coordinates for the plot selected. Contributed by Paul
+ Casteels.
+
+- Function to plot map backgrounds added, where the map data is read from
+ the specified map data file (examples provided). Contributed by Wesley
+ Ebisuzaki.
+
+- Fast point plot ability added. Call plpoin with code=-1 for a 4X or so
+ speed increase in point plots.
+
+- Search path for needed files improved and made more consistent.
+ (Contributed by Mark Olesen).
+
+- Can now save a plot from the Tk/DP driver and have the colors turn
+ out correctly.
+
+- Previous problems re: mono X displays fixed.
+
+- Multiple sequential bop or eop's are now munged together, making it
+ easier to avoid blank pages.
+
+- Can now change the number of subpages at any time.
+
+- Fixed problems in tek drivers caused by entering cbreak mode --
+ this was fouling up user input (tty) requests. Now it goes into cbreak
+ mode when switching to the graphics screen, and back to canonical mode
+ when switching to the text screen. Also, this is all usable now on
+ systems without an ANSI libc.
+
+- Added new driver -- HP Laserjet III in HPGL emulation mode (lj_hpgl).
+ Contributed by Conrad Steenberg.
+
+- Greatly improved support for embedded plframe use (directly from
+ plserver or a plframe-extended wish). See tk01, tk02, tk03 for more
+ info. Many minor improvements and a few bugs squashed in the Tk driver.
+
+
+**************************************************************************
+Version 4.99g: Summary of major changes (gigantic update)
+**************************************************************************
+
+This was a very big update, sorry for the delay. The changes may cause
+some inconvenience, and while we can't promise an end to that :-), will
+try to hold them to a minimum before the "big" 5.0 release. As we get
+closer, there are some changes we will make in the "now or never" frame of
+mind, meant to positively affect future versions without causing too much
+difficulty now.
+
+
+- Document:
+
+We have made substantial progress towards converting the (previously
+LaTeX) document into LaTeXinfo. This gives us the capability to have both
+a high quality (yes, if you work at it hard enough) printed manual as well
+as a hypertext-like online document, using info. There are many info
+readers around but the most famous is the one built into Emacs. Both
+documents are now available but still need considerable work, and
+unfortunately are still largely based on information as of the beta
+plplot4.0 series. Based on the number and importance of the changes since
+then, we an updated manual is desperately needed! And it is coming...the
+contents of the doc directory represents work in progress.
+
+
+- configuration, building, and installation:
+
+configure has been improved so that it runs more like GNU configure. You
+can run it from the root directory (although I don't necessarily advise
+doing so) and use the GNU configure --prefix option for setting the
+location to install PLplot (more useful).
+
+THE DEFAULT INSTALL DIRECTORY PROCEDURE HAS BEEN CHANGED!!!!!
+Now PLplot by default installs into:
+ prefix-dir/
+ bin/
+ lib/
+ include/
+ doc/
+ tcl/
+It had to be done before it was too late. Makefile overrides default
+value of INSTALL_DIR if m4 macro PREFIX is defined. Also check out
+the script "mklinks".
+
+
+- Tcl-DP driver added!
+
+Yes, finally finished, and it works great everywhere but on Crays (sigh --
+and I thought I fixed that in the Tcl-DP 3.1 distribution). By using the
+DP driver you bypass all the difficulties with using Xauth (or the
+security problems of doing without it) in the TK driver. The Tcl-DP
+driver is much more usable. It's even distributable -- tested between an
+HP and a Sun (as server), and between an IBM RS-6000 and HP (as server).
+Just specify -server_host (and -user if necessary), and it will try to
+start up a plserver under your user account (need to have .rhost info set
+appropriately). Great at increasing responsiveness of the GUI, and screen
+dumps always save to the local machine.
+
+
+- TK interface improvements.
+
+The TK interface (using either the TK or DP drivers) has been greatly
+enhanced. "plserver" can be used exactly like an extended "wish" now (the
+TK windowing shell). It has been extended to know about "plframe" widgets
+and how to interact with the PLplot/TK/DP drivers. There are documented
+interfaces and demos now for building your own extended wish using the
+plframe widget, as well as an illustration of direct plotting using PLplot
+from Tcl (through the plframe widget). Color map manipulation tools added
+for cmap0 and cmap1. Support for user-modifiable keystroke invocation of
+menu items added. The following are the defaults keymappings as set in
+pldefaults.tcl, their meaning is clear:
+
+ global key_zoom_select; set key_zoom_select "z"
+ global key_zoom_reset; set key_zoom_reset "r"
+ global key_print; set key_print "p"
+ global key_save_again; set key_save_again "s"
+ global key_scroll_right; set key_scroll_right "Right"
+ global key_scroll_left; set key_scroll_left "Left"
+ global key_scroll_up; set key_scroll_up "Up"
+ global key_scroll_down; set key_scroll_down "Down"
+ global key_scroll_slow; set key_scroll_slow "3"
+ global key_scroll_fast; set key_scroll_fast "15"
+ global key_scroll_faster; set key_scroll_faster "75"
+
+The last three indicate the number of pixels to scroll each time one
+keystroke is processed. To get the "fast" setting, press Shift-cursor.
+You get the "faster" setting by using shift-ctrl-cursor.
+
+
+- Area fill support added.
+
+Now you can do color (hardware) fills. Only recognized on certain drivers
+(postscript, all X-based drivers, all Tek4107 devices, and Amiga).
+Tektronix devices even recognize hardware pattern fills (obtained by a
+negative fill index). Devices that don't know about hardware fills
+automatically get a software pattern fill.
+
+
+- Color map usage improved.
+
+I have finally implemented the dual cmap0/cmap1 color scheme I have long
+talked about. cmap0 is typically for fixed colors, like axes, labels,
+lines, etc. Color 0 of cmap0 should now be the background! It may not
+always be enforced now but it eventually will be, as well as possible.
+cmap1 is envisioned as a continuous tone color palette. cmap0 contains
+the "normal" colors that you set by plcol(<number>) (now plcol0(<number>)
+is preferred). cmap1 contains colors set indirectly, by specifying
+"position in cmap1 space" -- a floating point number from 0 to 1 (previous
+to that a mapping between position and color must have been specified).
+This scheme has the advantage that you can take advantage of as many or
+few colors as the output device supports. For example, with postscript
+which supports arbitrarily many colors (the printer itself is another
+story), you can get 256 different colors, because that's as many as I
+currently provide storage for. On X-windows with 8 plane displays I get a
+lot less with a shared colormap (custom colormap support is almost done),
+maybe around 50-100, depending on window manager. And this scheme is even
+useful on as few as 16 colors, as is commonly available (Tek 4107
+emulation is fairly common on the PC, Mac, and Amiga). You do so by
+limiting the number of colors in cmap0, leaving most for use in cmap1.
+plshade() function enhanced to work with either color map -- see example
+program x16c for a demonstration.
+
+If at all possible, try to play with x16c using the TK or DP driver --
+modifying the color map interactively is simply wonderful. Especially try
+modifying cmap1, and then loading in the alternate palettes cmap1b.pal and
+cmap1c.pal (cmap1a.pal is the default), and play with it; you will get a
+much better idea how it works while I get around to documenting it!
+
+
+- Revamped Tek drivers, added explicit support for: Versaterm (Mac), and
+VLT (Amiga). [explicit mskermit(DOS) support was added in the last
+release] Tek4107 driver improved to actually work on a real tek 4107
+(thanks to Paul Kirschner). Commands to set color palette now are sent
+from PLplot.
+
+
+- Postscript output behaves better with ghostview -- it actually
+backspaces correctly (hey hey, finally).
+
+
+- X driver: lots of changes to support color map1 and custom color
+maps. Right now does NOT use a custom color map by default since I didn't
+think it was quite ready for the big time, especially as part of the
+TK/DP driver. There are some internal settings the adventurous can
+play with. Function added for capturing mouse events added (thanks to
+Radey Shouman); this soon should lead to a way of returning world
+coordinates at the mouse position.
+
+
+- Improved DOS driver support (see Changes.log and the drivers)
+
+
+- All source files handling API: replaced call to plexit() on simple
+(recoverable) errors with simply printing the error message (via
+plabort()) and returning. Should help avoid loss of computer time in some
+critical circumstances (during a long batch run, for example).
+
+
+- behavior of exit handler changed to be more useful for users who want
+greater control of execution.
+
+
+- plus lots of bug fixes, memory leaks plugged, compilation warnings
+eliminated, etc.
+
+
+**************************************************************************
+Version 4.99g notes distributed by e-mail:
+**************************************************************************
+
+From: Maurice LeBrun <mj...@di...>
+Subject: Some comments on 4.99g
+To: plp...@di...
+Date: Fri, 27 May 94 4:32:26 CDT
+
+Just some varied comments about this last release.
+
+This release (PLplot 4.99g) was very long awaited, and very draining.
+There have been several new capabilities that I thought were too crucial
+to wait any longer before adding them, as well as many minor improvements,
+bug fixes, and user-contributions. There are a lot of energetic users-of
+and contributers-to PLplot. A bit to my surprise, I might say. (But
+then, recently when I talked to Sze Tan, the original author, he said the
+same thing..)
+
+No doubt there will be some difficulties encountered with this release.
+There may have to be a bug fix release before long to fix problems, so
+please let me know of difficulties. It might help to post them to the
+mailing list so that other people don't have to experience the same.
+
+This is the last big release before 5.0, the rest I hope are relatively
+minor updates. With 5.0, we aim for (a) most known bugs to be killed, (b)
+all capabilities we've been working on to be finished, (c) all significant
+capabilities be documented, and (d) the package tested on all platforms
+listed as "supported". We are approaching this goal, but are a little
+ways from it yet. However you may still get your chance to help out :-).
+More on that later.
+
+Some comments on the new capabilities:
+
+A big newbie is the Tcl-DP driver. Fixes some of the inherent problems
+in the TK driver send mechanism, and is distributable across a network.
+It really works, I've tried it (for some configurations at least).
+Nothing like zooming in on a plot at workstation speeds when the renderer
+front-end is running on a machine half the world away (yes, I've even
+done it between Texas and Japan).
+
+Lots of cool improvements to the TK interface. Check out the color
+palette manipulation tools. Certain menus have keystroke equivalents now
+(e.g. hit 'z'), making simple operations much nicer (thanks, Dave, for the
+suggestion).
+
+Support for direct usage of the plframe widget as a Tcl/TK extension.
+This is very important since Tcl/TK, especially when taking all the cool
+extensions into account, is *THE* way to program X-based applications
+(IMO). Sophisticated user interfaces to scientific codes under X, using
+the PLplot widget (among others) are just waiting to be built...
+
+Color map 1 support -- this is designed to enable the type of continous
+color plots you can get in other graphics packages (e.g. I'm thinking of
+NCSA Ximage) but in a more flexible way, allowing intuitive modification,
+and display on a number of devices. This capability comes in through the
+new color palette -- cmap1, and you take a look at x16c to see the effect.
+Preferably using multiple color (supported) devices, and for the best
+effect using the TK or DP driver, playing with the color palette using the
+new menu options. Thanks again to Wesley Ebisuzaki for contributing
+"plshade()", the function doing the shading here. Note: plshade is the
+best way for limited number of colors, but for a larger number of colors
+(and grid points) a different algorithm would be optimal, something that
+is more discrete. At 0th approximation, you might try a function that
+just fills each grid cell with a constant color. Suggestions appreciated.
+Also, the TK driver right now does not proper clip polygons (on zooms),
+because the algorithm to do so hasn't been implemented. Any interested
+parties?
+
+Work on the updated manual is underway and so far it's looking pretty good...
+
+--
+Maurice LeBrun mj...@di...
+Institute for Fusion Studies, University of Texas at Austin
+
+Faire de la bonne cuisine demande un certain temps. Si on vous fait
+attendre, c'est pour mieux vous servir, et vous plaire.
+ [menu of restaurant Antoine, New Orleans]
+
+
+**************************************************************************
+Version 4.99d additional notes
+**************************************************************************
+
+From: Maurice LeBrun <mj...@di...>
+Subject: Some comments about plplot 4.99d.
+To: plp...@di...
+Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 17:08:53 CDT
+
+I thought I'd mention a few other things in association with this latest
+release. There may be a smaller release before long, to address those
+(hopefully minor) problems that arise. Then I will take a break from
+plplot development for a short while, and after that my major push will be
+to update the document, a few more enhancements, and slow down a bit.
+
+The TK driver was a tremendous push, but I expect it to be worth it. It
+has the basic functionality that I've always wanted, along with a huge
+potential for customization. It is my intention that people can build
+arbitrary Tcl/TK applications that just happen to use plplot widgets to
+plot into. I plan to construct at least one demo of how to do such a
+thing, and it will be interesting to see what kinds of variations people
+come up with. Tcl/TK programming is so easy that there should be lots (I
+can't believe I was actually considering doing a Motif-based driver).
+Writing a widget, on the other hand, is hard work, but now that's more or
+less history.
+
+Also, as I constructed the Tcl/TK driver I tried to add the required
+increases in functionality to plplot in a rather generic way. The stuff
+you would ordinarily use a GUI for can typically be handled from the
+command line in fact -- like page layout, zooms, and orientation
+(independent of the output driver). This is because of the new driver
+interface functions that sit between the library proper and the driver.
+They are located in plcore.c if you are interested, and do 4
+transformations so far -- orientation (you can even rotate by a fractional
+amount, but I never bothered making it come out perfect! :-), altering the
+window into plot space (zoom), altering the window into device space
+(page layout, good for adding margins), and global device coordinate
+transformation (good for making page dumps to an arbitrary device).
+Other windowing drivers should be able to use these facilities without
+too much trouble. Eventually I hope to intercept other commands at
+the interface layer, and decide what to do based on the intelligence
+of the driver. This might be used to handle device dependent fonts,
+hardware color fill, and so forth.
+
+At this point, I'm feeling the need to release the package in a more
+"official" way than I have in the past. So my main priority will be to
+bring the documentation up to sync with the rest of the package. I would
+also like to accomplish the first 4 or so things on my 'ToDo' list, and as
+it should involve about 1/10 of the effort of the original TK driver (I
+hope :-) expect it to happen in a much shorter time frame than the 8
+months or so this release has taken. I'll probably introduce some
+compatibility problems at that time in an effort to consolidate, but after
+5.0 will be very careful about breaking old software.
+
+In another change, I would like to ask for volunteers to maintain versions
+of plplot for specific platforms. These people could get prerelease
+versions in order to make whatever fixes are needed ahead of time. We are
+most likely to have the package be up-to-date on the following systems:
+HP-UX, Linux; less likely on the following: SunOS, AIX, Unicos, Super-UX,
+Amiga, and maybe not at all on any others. It would be good for someone
+to put in shared library support for any system that supports them (so far
+I've only done it under HP-UX). I am gradually moving away from
+supporting the Amiga driver so could use some help here. Geoff has
+abandoned the DOS drivers and is leaning away from supporting the OS/2
+driver, so here again target platform developers are needed.
+
+--
+Maurice LeBrun mj...@di...
+Institute for Fusion Studies, University of Texas at Austin
+
+Faire de la bonne cuisine demande un certain temps. Si on vous fait
+attendre, c'est pour mieux vous servir, et vous plaire.
+ [menu of restaurant Antoine, New Orleans]
+
+
+
+
+**************************************************************************
+Version 4.99d pre-announcement plus assorted e-mail notes leading up to 4.99d
+**************************************************************************
+
+Pre-announcement
+----------------
+
+As I mentioned in the previous plplot beta update, I have been working on a
+plplot TCL/TK driver under Unix/X (if you're not running Unix/X you might as
+well skip this message). Well, I am now far enough along that I can
+confidently say it will see the light of day before too long, on the order of
+weeks I hope. It should be really nice, too, and am letting everybody know
+ahead of time so that you can go get the TCL/TK distribution (if you don't
+have it already) and start playing with it. TCL is an embeddable interpreter
+in the spirit of Perl, and TK a Motif-like toolkit. They are free and very
+high quality; furthermore, constructing the script language & interpreter
+together with a toolkit appears to be an outrageously useful thing to do.
+You have to try it to see why. For more info, consult the substantial
+documentation (and demos) for TCL/TK. I have appended the FAQ to the end of
+this message. To quickly find the section on how to get TCL/TK and assorted
+other stuff, search on the string "Tcl/Tk Package Catalog".
+
+Moving on, the basic code is done and I am finally getting simple plots out.
+What I have is the following:
+
+User-code
+ |
+ plplot tk driver plserver
+ TCL interpreter <------ tk send ------> interpreter
+ | |
+ data writer ---- named pipe -----> data reader
+ |
+ child X window
+
+The user-code and the renderer (tentatively called plserver, I may change
+this) form a client/server relationship, and are separate processes. Under
+typical usage, where the user-code starts first, it forks (vfork on systems
+that support it) and execs the renderer. TCL/TK communication (via X
+properties) is used between their embedded interpreters to send commands back
+and forth (note: an extended version of TCL called TCL-DP allows sockets
+to be used for this, and I will eventually try to extend the model to
+allow distribution across a network). The existence of an interpreter in
+each process (actually each plplot stream that uses tk too) allows for
+a very easy & robust method of sending commands between processes.
+The data goes through via an alternate channel (fifo for now, maybe socket
+later) for maximum speed.
+
+Also I will support an alternate configuration where the server launches
+applications, telling them what plplot widget to plot to. Lots of nice
+possibilities there.
+
+By offloading the GUI-building code into a simple script language, it becomes
+easy to build menus, buttons, scrollbars, etc. All of these will be
+configurable by the user, as well as the ability to map events (such as
+button presses) to functions calls in your own program. But you will need to
+learn TCL/TK to get maximum benefit. Even without additional effort,
+however, you will be able to use the new driver's menus to do zooming, dump
+to file, etc.
+
+More later..
+
+--
+Maurice LeBrun mj...@di...
+Institute for Fusion Studies, University of Texas at Austin
+
+Faire de la bonne cuisine demande un certain temps. Si on vous fait
+attendre, c'est pour mieux vous servir, et vous plaire.
+ [menu of restaurant Antoine, New Orleans]
+
+From: Maurice J. LeBrun <mj...@di...>
+Subject: slowness of the TK driver over the net
+To: wd...@ct...
+Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 11:24:46 CDT
+Cc: fu...@di..., gr...@di...,
+ mj...@di...
+
+> Also, I used plrender to render a meta file on dino and display on
+> ctrss2. One thing that I noticed is that it seems to take much longer for
+> the plots to be displayed running the tk driver than just the standard X
+> driver. Do you notice that locally on dino? Also, do you have a good demo
+> meta file lying around that I could grab and try? I could not get plrender
+> to go backwards with my meta file using the tk driver and wonder if it is
+> because the meta file was generated by an ancient version of plplot.
+>
+> Dave
+
+The current incarnation of the TK driver is going to run a bit slow
+over a network because of the way messages are passed between the
+user code and the renderer. In this case plrender is the user code
+and it forks the actual renderer.
+
+The TK send command does IPC by storing messages in an X property
+of the display. This means that when running over a network, messages
+must travel from the X client to the X server and then back again.
+Kind of sick, I know. So for the time being I recommend using the TK
+driver primarily locally.
+
+Eventually I will switch to a scheme where the renderer runs on the
+display server. I don't think there will be many changes required for
+this to work. The FIFO becomes a socket, and the TK send is replaced by
+Tcl-DP's send (which uses sockets). I have to work out how to start the
+remote renderer. Probably it could try doing a remsh (or rsh on systems
+that don't have remsh), and if it fails for security or other reasons,
+tell the user to start the renderer manually using some specified socket
+for communication. I don't feel like getting into all this now but that's
+sort of how it will look.
+
+--
+Maurice LeBrun mj...@di...
+Institute for Fusion Studies, University of Texas at Austin
+
+Faire de la bonne cuisine demande un certain temps. Si on vous fait
+attendre, c'est pour mieux vous servir, et vous plaire.
+ [menu of restaurant Antoine, New Orleans]
+
+Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 23:55:50 -0500
+From: Maurice J. LeBrun <mj...@di...>
+To: fu...@di..., gr...@di...,
+ mj...@di..., wd...@di...
+Subject: CVS update notice
+
+Update of /u/tpc/cvs/plplot/sys/unix
+In directory dino:/u/mjl/devel/plplot4p99d/sys/unix
+
+Modified Files:
+ makefile.m4
+Log Message:
+Now passes in INSTALL_DIR as a string containing the installation
+directory, typically /usr/local/plplot. Files that get this information
+include plfont.c (for use in the font search path), plserver.c (for use in
+th...
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