[Plplot-cvs] SF.net SVN: plplot:[12969] trunk/README.release

[<ai...@us...>]

Revision: 12969
          http://sourceforge.net/p/plplot/code/12969
Author:   airwin
Date:     2014-01-29 02:20:43 +0000 (Wed, 29 Jan 2014)
Log Message:
-----------
This change substantially reorganizes and simplifies the release
notes. This is possible because we are dropping the artificial
distinction between stable and development releases as discussed on
list.

ToDo.  Add what has changed for this release and add notes
on the tests done for this release as those happen.

Modified Paths:
--------------
    trunk/README.release

Modified: trunk/README.release
===================================================================
--- trunk/README.release	2014-01-29 01:42:57 UTC (rev 12968)
+++ trunk/README.release	2014-01-29 02:20:43 UTC (rev 12969)
@@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
 PLplot Release 5.10.0
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-This is a stable release of PLplot. It represents the ongoing efforts
-of the community to improve the PLplot plotting package. Development
-releases in the 5.11.x series will be available every few months. The next
-stable release will be 5.12.0.
+This is a release of the PLplot plotting package. It represents the
+ongoing best efforts of the PLplot community to improve the PLplot
+plotting package, and it is the only version of PLplot that we attempt
+to support. Releases in the 5.x.y series should be available several
+times per year.
 
 If you encounter a problem that is not already documented in the
 PROBLEMS file or on our bug tracker, then please send bug reports to
@@ -18,103 +19,39 @@
 
 INDEX
 
-1. OFFICIAL NOTICES FOR USERS SINCE 5.9.11 (the previous development release)
+1. OFFICIAL NOTICES FOR USERS
 
-2. Tests made for release 5.10.0
+2. Changes relative to the previous release
 
-3. Changes relative to PLplot 5.9.11 (the previous development release)
+3. Tests made for the current release
 
-4. OFFICIAL NOTICES FOR USERS SINCE 5.8.0 (the previous stable release)
+1. OFFICIAL NOTICES FOR USERS
 
-5. Changes relative to PLplot 5.8.0 (the previous stable release)
+The distinction we made prior to 5.10.0 between stable and development
+releases was essentially completely artificial and has now been
+dropped.  In each case, the latest release was "stable" in the sense
+that it was the PLplot team's best effort with substantial testing on
+the computer platforms available to our test team.  And that tradition
+continues for the release of 5.10.0.  Note we have bumped the minor
+number in this release triplet compared to the previous 5.9.11 release
+because from now on we want to reserve the patch number in that
+triplet only for those (rare) releases that contain emergency fixes
+compared to the previous release.  Note especially that 5.10.0 is not
+that different from the prior release 5.9.11, and we don't ordinarily
+require such emergency releases so our forthcoming release numbers are
+likely to be 5.11.0, 5.12.0, etc.
 
-5.1 All autotools-related files have now been removed
-5.2 Build system bug fixes
-5.3 Build system improvements
-5.4 Implement build-system infrastructure for installed Ada bindings and
-examples
-5.5 Code cleanup
-5.6 Date / time labels for axes
-5.7 Alpha value support
-5.8 New PLplot functions
-5.9 External libLASi library improvements affecting our psttf device
-5.10 Improvements to the cairo driver family
-5.11 wxWidgets driver improvements
-5.12 pdf driver improvements
-5.13 svg driver improvements
-5.14 Ada language support
-5.15 OCaml language support
-5.16 Perl/PDL language support
-5.17 Update to various language bindings
-5.18 Update to various examples
-5.19 Extension of our test framework
-5.20 Rename test subdirectory to plplot_test
-5.21 Website support files updated
-5.22 Internal changes to function visibility
-5.23 Dynamic driver support in Windows
-5.24 Documentation updates
-5.25 libnistcd (a.k.a. libcd) now built internally for -dev cgm
-5.26 get-drv-info now changed to test-drv-info
-5.27 Text clipping now enabled by default for the cairo devices
-5.28 A powerful qt device driver has been implemented
-5.29 The PLplot API is now accessible from Qt GUI applications
-5.30 NaN / Inf support for some PLplot functions
-5.31 Various bug fixes
-5.32 Cairo driver improvements
-5.33 PyQt changes
-5.34 Color Palettes
-5.35 Re-implementation of a "soft landing" when a bad/missing compiler is
-detected
-5.36 Make PLplot aware of LC_NUMERIC locale
-5.37 Linear gradients have been implemented
-5.38 Cairo Windows driver implemented
-5.39 Custom axis labelling implemented
-5.40 Universal coordinate transform implemented
-5.41 Support for arbitrary storage of 2D user data
-5.42 Font improvements
-5.42 Alpha value support for plotting in memory.
-5.43 Add a Qt device for in memory plotting.
-5.44 Add discrete legend capability.
-5.45 Add full bindings and examples for the D language.
-5.46 The plstring and plstring3 functions have been added
-5.47 The pllegend API has been finalized
-5.48 Octave bindings now implemented with swig
-5.49 Documentation redone for our swig-generated Python and Octave bindings
-5.50 Support large polygons
-5.51 Complete set of PLplot parameters now available for Fortran
-5.52 The plarc function has been added
-5.53 The format for map data used by plmap has changed
-5.54 Python support for Numeric has been dropped
-5.55 Backwards-incompatible API change to non-integer line widths
-5.56 Improvements to the build system for the Cygwin case
-5.57 The plcolorbar API has been finalized
-5.58 Documentation of the new legend and color bar capabilities of PLplot
-5.59 The D bindings and examples have been converted from the
-old version of D (D1) to the new version of D (D2)
-5.60 The DocBook documentation for PLplot is now generated using modern
-XML/XSL backend tools for DocBook
-5.61 Implement experimental build_projects sub-project
-5.62 Implement extremely simple "00" example
-5.63 Convert to using the Allura form of SourceForge software
-5.64 Use NON_TRANSITIVE linking by default for the shared libraries case for
-all non-windows systems
-5.65 Update f95 examples to take larger advantage of Fortran 95 capabilities
-5.66 Substantial additions to the doxygen documentation
-5.67 NUMERIC_INCLUDE_PATH ==> NUMPY_INCLUDE_PATH
-5.68 Major overhaul of the build system and bindings for Tcl and friends
-5.69 Substantial overhaul of the build system for the Qt-components of PLplot
-5.70 The epa_build project has been implemented
+2. Changes relative to the previous release
 
-1. OFFICIAL NOTICES FOR USERS SINCE 5.9.11 (the previous development release)
-
 None at this time.
 
-2. Tests made for release 5.10.0
+3. Tests made for the current release.
 
 None at this time.  
 
-However, to remind testers of what they did in the release cycle
-leading up to 5.9.11 here are the notes from those earlier tests:
+However, to remind testers of what they did in the latter
+stages of the release cycle for the previous release
+here are the notes from those earlier tests:
 
 
 Note that "comprehensive tests" below refers to running
@@ -262,1475 +199,3 @@
 Lion.  The report from Felipe stated the compiler suite used was
 probably from MacPorts, and did not state anything about the hardware
 type.
-
-3. Changes relative to PLplot 5.9.11 (the previous development release)
-
-None at this time.
-
-4. OFFICIAL NOTICES FOR USERS SINCE 5.8.0 (the previous stable release)
-
-(5.9.11) Backwards-incompatible API change.  The numerical symbolic
-constants that are #defined as macros in plplot.h have been
-repropagated to the Python, Java, Lua, Octave, Fortran 95, and Tcl
-language bindings using scripts.  Previously, this propagation was
-done by hand in a piece-meal manner so use of the scripts has created
-a number of changes in the PLplot symbolic constants for these
-languages.  These changes are the addition of 25 symbolic constants
-that were previously only available for C, no deletions of symbolic
-constants, no changes to numerical values, but the following
-backwards-incompatible name changes:
-
-PLESC_PLFLTBUFFERING ==> PLESC_DOUBLEBUFFERING
-PLESPLFLTBUFFERING_DISABLE ==> PLESC_DOUBLEBUFFERING_ENABLE
-PLESPLFLTBUFFERING_ENABLE ==> PLESC_DOUBLEBUFFERING_ENABLE
-PLESPLFLTBUFFERING_QUERY ==> PLESC_DOUBLEBUFFERING_QUERY
-
-So those users who were using the symbolic constants on the left for
-the above languages will have to change their source code or scripts
-to use the constants on the right.  No changes in source code or
-scripts should be required of other users.
-
-(5.9.11) Backwards-incompatible API change.  The PLplot build system
-and bindings for Tcl and friends have had a major overhaul, see below.
-Part of this change was to split the former libplplottcltk into two
-components.  The new libplplottcltk is now a pure Tcl/Tk extension
-that can be linked to the stub versions of the Tcl/Tk libraries and
-dynamically loaded from a tclsh or wish environment using the
-appropriate "package require" command.  The new libplplottcltk_Main
-library contains code (e.g., pltclMain and pltkMain) required by C
-plotting applications (e.g., pltcl, plrender, and xtk0[124].c) that
-link to libplplottcltk.
-
-(5.9.11) Backwards-incompatible change.  Our Fortran 77 bindings
-and examples have been completely removed because Fortran 95 is just a
-much better language which we have been supporting for a long time,
-and our judgement call based on user feedback we have received is
-nobody is interested in plotting using strict Fortran 77 language
-constructs any more.  However, if there is still some Fortran 77
-source code out there that uses PLplot, typically the only change you
-should have to do to port it to our Fortran 95 bindings is to place
-the command "use plplot" as the first line of the source code of the
-main routine.
-
-(5.9.11) Deprecation.  The functionality of the AGG backend and
-FreeType option in the wxwidgets device driver is provided (and in
-some cases exceeded) by other backends and options that we have
-implemented for this device driver.  The AGG backend and Freetype
-option are therefore deprecated with the intention to remove them in a
-future release.
-
-(5.9.10) The minimum version of CMake has been bumped to 5.8.9.  This
-change allows our build system to take advantage of CMake features
-introduced in later versions of CMake.  Even more importantly it also
-updates user's builds to the CMake policy conventions (important
-backwards-incompatible changes in CMake behaviour introduced in later
-versions of CMake) to the default CMake policy used for 5.8.9.
-
-(5.9.10) The long deprecated support for the python Numeric package has been
-dropped. This is no longer supported and is superseded by numpy. Support for
-numpy has been the default in PLplot for a number of years so most users
-should notice no difference.
-
-(5.9.10) The current format for maps used by plmap has been deprecated in
-favour of using shapefiles (a standard format widely used for GIS and with
-suitable free data sources available). This requires the shapelib library
-to be installed. If this library is not installed then by default no map
-support will be available. Support for the old binary format is still
-available by setting the cmake variable PL_DEPRECATED, however this
-support will be removed in a future release of PLplot.
-
-(5.9.10) Those who use the Python version of plgriddata will have to
-change their use of this function for this release as follows (see
-examples/xw21.py)
-
-# old version (which overwrites preexisting zg in place):
-zg = reshape(zeros(xp*yp),(xp,yp))
-plgriddata(x, y, z, xg, yg, zg, alg, opt[alg-1])
-
-# new version (which uses a properly returned newly created NumPy array
-# as per the normal Python expectations):
-
-zg = plgriddata(x, y, z, xg, yg, alg, opt[alg-1])
-
-(5.9.10) Significant efforts have been made to ensure the PLplot code
-is standards compliant and free from warnings. Compliance has been
-tested using the gcc compiler suite -std, -pedantic and -W  flags. The
-language standards adopted are
-C: ISO C99 with POSIX.1-2001 base specification (required for a number
-of C library calls)
-C++: ISO C++ 1998 standard plus amendments
-F95: Fortran 95 standard
-
-Specifically, the following gcc / g++ / gfortran flags were used
-
-CFLAGS='-O3 -std=c99 -pedantic -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200112L -Wall  \
--Wextra -Wmissing-prototypes -Wstrict-prototypes -Wnested-externs \
--Wconversion -Wshadow -Wcast-qual -Wcast-align -Wwrite-strings'
-
-CXXFLAGS='-O3 -fvisibility=hidden -std=c++98 -pedantic -Wall -Wextra '
-
-FFLAGS='-std=f95 -O3 -fall-intrinsics -fvisibility=hidden -pedantic \
--Wall -Wextra '
-
-Note that the code is not yet quite standards compliant or warning free,
-but this is our aim. We know that a number of common compilers do not
-support these standards "out of the box", so we will continue to develop
-and support workarounds to ensure that PLplot remains easily built on
-a variety of platforms and compilers. Standards compliance should make
-it easier to port to new systems in the future. Using aggressive
-warnings flags will help to detect and eliminate errors or problems in
-the libraries.
-
-The gfortran -fall-intrinsics flag is required for a couple of
-non-standard intrinsics which are used in the code. In the future
-adopting the fortran 2003 or 2008 standard should allow this to be
-removed.
-
-Note: currently this code cleanup does not apply to code generated by
-swig (octave, python, java, lua bindings) which gives a large number of
-code warnings.
-
-(5.9.10) For some years now we have had both FORTRAN 77 and Fortran 95
-bindings, but to the best of our knowledge, there are no longer
-any maintained FORTRAN 77 compilers left that do not also support
-Fortran 95. (g77 for instance has not been maintained for several
-years now. Its successor gfortran supports Fortran 95 and later standards
-as well all g77's legacy features).
-
-An important consequence is that we can not test the implementation for
-compliance to the FORTRAN 77 standard.
-Furthermore, we would prefer to concentrate all our Fortran
-development effort on our f95 bindings and strongly encourage all our
-Fortran users to use those bindings if they haven't switched from the
-f77 version already. Therefore, as of this release we are deprecating
-the f77 bindings and examples and plan no further support for them.
-We signal this deprecation by disabling f77 by default (although our
-users can still get access to these unsupported bindings and examples
-for now by specifying the -DENABLE_f77=ON cmake option).
-
-We plan to completely remove the f77 bindings and examples
-two releases after this one.
-
-(5.9.10) We have found that some distributions of the Windows
-MinGW/gfortran compiler (i.e., MinGW/gfortran 4.6.1 and 4.6.2 from
-http://www.equation.com) may cause a link error due to duplicate
-symbols like __gfortran_setarg_. These errors can be suppressed by
-adding the flag -Wl,--allow-multiple-define. It is very likely that
-this is a bug in these distributions.
-
-As building the libraries and the examples succeeds without any problem
-if you use most other distributions of Windows MinGW/gfortran,
-we have decided not to include this flag in our build system.
-
-Distributions that are known to work:
-- MinGW/gfortran-4.5 from http://www.equation.com,
-- MinGW/gfortran-4.5.2-1 that is installed using the latest
-  mingw-get-inst-20110802 automatic installer available at
-  http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/Installer/mingw-get-inst
-- MinGW/gfortran-4.6.2 from tdm-gcc.tdragon.net
-
-(Therefore it is not the 4.5.x versus 4.6.x version of MinGW/gfortran
-as such that causes this problem.)
-
-(5.9.9) This is a quick release to deal with two broken build issues
-that were recently discovered for our Windows platform.  Windows users should
-avoid 5.9.8 because of these problems for that release, and instead use
-5.9.9 which has been heavily tested on a number of platforms including
-Windows, see "Tests made for release 5.9.9" below.
-
-(5.9.8) For unicode-aware devices we now follow what is done for the
-Hershey font case for epsilon, theta, and phi.  This means the #ge,
-#gh, and #gf escapes now give users the Greek lunate epsilon, the
-ordinary Greek lower case theta, and the Greek symbol phi for Unicode
-fonts just like has occurred since the dawn of PLplot history for the
-Hershey font case.  Previously these legacy escapes were assigned to
-ordinary Greek lower-case epsilon, the Greek symbol theta (= script
-theta), and the ordinary Greek lower case phi for unicode fonts
-inconsistently with what occurred for Hershey fonts.  This change gets
-rid of this inconsistency, that is the #g escapes should give the best
-unicode approximation to the Hershey glyph result that is possible for
-unicode-aware devices.
-
-In general we encourage users of unicode-aware devices who might
-dislike the Greek glyph Hershey-lookalike choices they get with the
-legacy #g escapes to use instead either PLplot unicode escapes (e.g.,
-"#[0x03b5]" for ordinary Greek lower-case epsilon, see page 3 of
-example 23) or better yet, UTF-8 strings (e.g., "ε") to specify
-exactly what unicode glyph they want.
-
-(5.9.8) The full set of PLplot constants have been made available to
-our Fortran 95 users as part of the plplot module.  This means those
-users will have to remove any parameter statements where they have
-previously defined the PLplot constants (whose names typically start
-with "PL_" for themselves.  For a complete list of the affected
-constants, see the #defines in swig-support/plplotcapi.i which are
-used internally to help generate the plplot module.  See also Index
-item 5.51 below.
-
-(5.9.8) There has been widespread const modifier changes in the API
-for libplplotd and libplplotcxxd.  Those backwards-incompatible API
-changes are indicated in the usual way by a soversion bump in those
-two libraries which will force all apps and libraries that depend on
-those two libraries to be rebuilt.
-
-Specifically, we have changed the following arguments in the C library
-(libplplotd) case
-
-type * name1 ==> const type * name1
-type * name2 ==> const type ** name2
-
-and the following arguments in the C++ library (libplplotcxxd) case
-
-type * name1 ==> const type * name1
-type * name1 ==> const type * const * name2
-
-where name1 is the name of a singly dimensioned array whose values are
-not changed internally by the PLplot libraries and name2 is the name
-of a doubly dimensioned array whose values are not changed internally
-by the PLplot libraries.
-
-The general documentation and safety justification for such const
-modifier changes to our API is given in
-http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/const_correctness.html.
-Essentially, the above const modifier changes constitute our guarantee
-that the associated arrays are not changed internally by the PLplot
-libraries.
-
-Although it is necessary to rebuild all apps and libraries that depend
-on libplplotd and/or libplplotcxxd, that rebuild should be possible
-with unchanged source code without build errors in all cases.  For C
-apps and libraries (depending on libplplotd) there will be additional
-build warnings due to a limitation in the C standard discussed at
-http://c-faq.com/ansi/constmismatch.html unless all doubly dimensioned
-arrays (but not singly dimensioned) are explicitly cast to (const type
-**).  However, such source code changes will not be necessary to avoid
-warning messages for the C++ (libplplotcxxd) change because of the
-double use of const in the above "const type * const * name2" change.
-
-(5.9.8) The plarc API has changed in release 5.9.8.  The plarc API now
-has a rotation parameter which will eventually allow for rotated arcs.
-PLplot does not currently support rotated arcs, but the plarc function
-signature has been modified to avoid changing the API when this
-functionality is added.
-
-(5.9.6) We have retired the pbm driver containing the pbm (actually
-portable pixmap) file device. This device is quite primitive and
-poorly maintained. It ignores unicode fonts (i.e., uses the Hershey
-font fallback), falls back to ugly software fills, doesn't support
-alpha transparency, etc.  It also has a serious run-time issue with
-example 2 (double free detected by glibc) which probably indicates
-some fundamental issue with the 100 colors in cmap0 for that
-example. For those who really need portable pixmap results, we suggest
-using the ImageMagick convert programme, e.g., "convert
-examples/x24c01.pngqt test.ppm" or "convert examples/x24c01.pngcairo
-test.ppm" to produce good-looking portable pixmap results from our
-best png device results.
-
-(5.9.6) We have retired the linuxvga driver containing the linuxvga
-interactive device.  This device is quite primitive, difficult to
-test, and poorly maintained. It ignores unicode fonts (i.e., uses the
-Hershey font fallback), falls back to ugly software fills, doesn't
-support alpha transparency, etc.  It is Linux only, can only be run as
-root, and svgalib (the library used by linuxsvga) is not supported by
-some mainstream (e.g., Intel) chipsets.  All of these characteristics
-make it difficult to even test this device much less use it for
-anything serious.  Finally, it has had a well-known issue for years
-(incorrect colors) which has never been fixed indicating nobody is
-interested in maintaining this device.
-
-(5.9.6) We have retired our platform support of djgpp that used to
-reside in sys/dos/djgpp.  The developer (Andrew Roach) who used to
-maintain those support files for djgpp feels that the djgpp platform
-is no longer actively developed, and he no longer uses djgpp himself.
-
-(5.9.6) We have changed plpoin results for ascii codes 92, 94, and 95
-from centred dot, degree symbol, and centred dot glyphs to the correct
-backslash, caret, and underscore glyphs that are associated with those
-ascii indices.  This change is consistent with the documentation of
-plpoin and solves a long-standing issue with backslash, caret, and
-underscore ascii characters in character strings used for example by
-pl[mp]tex.  Those who need access to a centred dot with plpoin should
-use index 1.  The degree symbol is no longer accessible with plpoin,
-but it is available in ordinary text input to PLplot as Hershey escape
-"#(718)", where 718 is the Hershey index of the degree symbol, unicode
-escape "#[0x00B0]" where 0x00B0 is the unicode index for the degree
-symbol or direct UTF8 unicode string "°".
-
-(5.9.6) We have retired the gcw device driver and the related gnome2
-and pygcw bindings since these are unmaintained and there are good
-replacements.  These components of PLplot were deprecated as of
-release 5.9.3.  A good replacement for the gcw device is either the
-xcairo or qtwidget device.  A good replacement for the gnome2 bindings
-is the externally supplied XDrawable or Cairo context associated with
-the xcairo device and the extcairo device (see
-examples/c/README.cairo).  A good replacement for pygcw is our new
-pyqt4 bindings for PLplot.
-
-(5.9.6) We have deprecated support for the python Numeric array
-extensions. Numeric is no longer maintained and users of Numeric are
-advised to migrate to numpy. Numpy has been the standard for PLplot
-for some time. If numpy is not present PLplot will now disable python
-by default. If you still require Numeric support in the short term
-then set USE_NUMERIC to ON in cmake. The PLplot support for Numeric
-will be dropped in a future release.
-
-(5.9.5) We have removed pyqt3 access to PLplot and replaced it by
-pyqt4 access to PLplot (see details below).
-
-(5.9.5) The only method of specifying a non-default compiler (and
-associated compiler options) that we support is the environment
-variable approach, e.g.,
-
-export CC='gcc -g -fvisibility=hidden'
-export CXX='g++ -g -fvisibility=hidden'
-export FC='gfortran -g -fvisibility=hidden'
-
-All other CMake methods of specifying a non-default compiler and
-associated compiler options will not be supported until CMake bug 9220
-is fixed, see discussion below of the soft-landing re-implementation
-for details.
-
-(5.9.5) We have retired the hpgl driver (containing the hp7470,
-hp7580, and lj_hpgl devices), the impress driver (containing the imp
-device), the ljii driver (containing the ljii and ljiip devices), and
-the tek driver (containing the conex, mskermit, tek4107, tek4107f,
-tek4010, tek4010f, versaterm, vlt, and xterm devices).  Retirement
-means we have removed the build options which would allow these
-devices to build and install.  Recent tests have shown a number of
-run-time issues (hpgl, impress, and ljii) or build-time issues (tek)
-with these devices, and as far as we know there is no more user
-interest in them. Therefore, we have decided to retire these devices
-rather than fix them.
-
-(5.9.4) We have deprecated the pbm device driver (containing the pbm
-device) because glibc detects a catastrophic double free.
-
-(5.9.3) Our build system requires CMake version 5.6.0 or higher.
-
-(5.9.3) We have deprecated the gcw device driver and the related
-gnome2 and pygcw bindings since these are essentially unmaintained.
-For example, the gcw device and associated bindings still depends on
-the plfreetype approach for accessing unicode fonts which has known
-issues (inconsistent text offsets, inconvenient font setting
-capabilities, and incorrect rendering of CTL languages).  To avoid
-these issues we advise using the xcairo device and the externally
-supplied XDrawable or Cairo context associated with the xcairo device
-and the extcairo device (see examples/c/README.cairo) instead. If you
-still absolutely must use -dev gcw or the related gnome2 or pygcw
-bindings despite the known problems, then they can still be accessed
-by setting PLD_gcw, ENABLE_gnome2, and/or ENABLE_pygcw to ON.
-
-(5.9.3) We have deprecated the gd device driver which implements the
-png, jpeg, and gif devices.  This device driver is essentially
-unmaintained. For example, it still depends on the plfreetype approach
-for accessing unicode fonts which has known issues (inconsistent text
-offsets, inconvenient font setting capabilities, and incorrect
-rendering of CTL languages).  To avoid these issues for PNG format, we
-advise using the pngcairo or pngqt devices.  To avoid these issues for
-the JPEG format, we advise using the jpgqt device.  PNG is normally
-considered a better raster format than GIF, but if you absolutely
-require GIF format, we advise using the pngcairo or pngqt devices and
-then downgrading the results to the GIF format using the ImageMagick
-"convert" application.  For those platforms where libgd (the
-dependency of the gd device driver) is accessible while the required
-dependencies of the cairo and/or qt devices are not accessible, you
-can still use these deprecated devices by setting PLD_png, PLD_jpeg,
-or PLD_gif to ON.
-
-(5.9.3) We have re-enabled the tk, itk, and itcl components of PLplot
-by default that were disabled by default as of release 5.9.1 due to
-segfaults.  The cause of the segfaults was a bug (now fixed) in how
-pthread support was implemented for the Tk-related components of
-PLplot.
-
-(5.9.2) We have set HAVE_PTHREAD (now called PL_HAVE_PTHREAD as of
-release 5.9.8) to ON by default for all platforms other than Darwin.
-Darwin will follow later once it appears the Apple version of X
-supports it.
-
-(5.9.1) We have removed our previously deprecated autotools-based
-build system.  Instead, use the CMake-based build system following the
-directions in the INSTALL file.
-
-(5.9.1) We no longer support Octave-5.1.73 which has a variety of
-run-time issues in our tests of the Octave examples on different
-platforms. In contrast our tests show we get good run-time results
-with all our Octave examples for Octave-3.0.1. Also, that is the
-recommended stable version of Octave at
-http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/download.html so that is the only
-version of Octave we support at this time.
-
-(5.9.1) We have decided for consistency sake to change the PLplot
-stream variables plsc->vpwxmi, plsc->vpwxma, plsc->vpwymi, and
-plsc->vpwyma and the results returned by plgvpw to reflect the exact
-window limit values input by users using plwind. Previously to this
-change, the stream variables and the values returned by plgvpw
-reflected the internal slightly expanded range of window limits used
-by PLplot so that the user's specified limits would be on the graph.
-Two users noted this slight difference, and we agree with them it
-should not be there. Note that internally, PLplot still uses the
-expanded ranges so most users results will be identical.  However, you
-may notice some small changes to your plot results if you use these
-stream variables directly (only possible in C/C++) or use plgvpw.
-
-5. Changes relative to PLplot 5.8.0 (the previous stable release)
-
-N.B. This release includes many code cleanups and fixes relative to
-5.8.0 that are not mentioned in the list below.
-
-5.1 All autotools-related files have now been removed
-
-CMake is now the only supported build system. It has been tested on
-Linux / Unix, Mac OS-X and Windows platforms.
-
-5.2 Build system bug fixes
-
-Various fixes include the following:
-
-Ctest will now work correctly when the build tree path includes symlinks.
-
-Dependencies for swig generated files fixed so they are not rebuilt every
-time make is called.
-
-Various dependency fixes to ensure that parallel builds (using make -j)
-work under unix.
-
-5.3 Build system improvements
-
-We now transform link flag results delivered to the CMake environment by
-pkg-config into the preferred CMake form of library information.  The
-practical effect of this improvement is that external libraries in
-non-standard locations now have their rpath options set correctly for our
-build system both for the build tree and the install tree so you don't have
-to fiddle with LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc.
-
-5.4 Implement build-system infrastructure for installed Ada bindings and
-examples
-
-Install source files, library information files, and the plplotada library
-associated with the Ada bindings.  Configure and install the pkg-config file
-for the plplotada library.  Install the Ada examples and a configured Makefile
-to build them in the install tree.
-
-5.5 Code cleanup
-
-The PLplot source code has been cleaned up to make consistent use of
-(const char *) and (char *) throughout. Some API functions have changed
-to use const char * instead of char * to make it clear that the strings
-are not modified by the function. The C and C++ examples have been updated
-consistent with this. These changes fix a large number of warnings
-with gcc-4.5. Note: this should not require programs using PLplot to be
-recompiled as it is not a binary API change.
-
-There has also been some cleanup of include files in the C++ examples
-so the code will compile with the forthcoming gcc-4.3.
-
-5.6 Date / time labels for axes
-
-PLplot now allows date / time labels to be used on axes. A new option
-('d') is available for the xopt and yopt arguments to plbox which
-indicates that the axis should be interpreted as a date / time. Similarly
-there is a new range of options for plenv to select date / time labels.
-The time format is seconds since the epoch (usually 1 Jan 1970). This
-format is commonly used on most systems. The C gmtime routine can be
-used to calculate this for a given date and time. The format for the
-labels is controlled using a new pltimefmt function, which takes a
-format string. All formatting is done using the C strftime function.
-See documentation for available options on your platform. Example 29
-demonstrates the new capabilities.
-
-N.B. Our reliance on C library POSIX time routines to (1) convert from
-broken-down time to time-epoch, (2) to convert from time-epoch to
-broken-down time, and (3) to format results with strftime have proved
-problematic for non-C languages which have time routines of variable
-quality.  Also, it is not clear that even the POSIX time routines are
-available on Windows. So we have plans afoot to implement high-quality
-versions of (1), (2), and (3) with additional functions to get/set the epoch
-in the PLplot core library itself.  These routines should work on all C
-platforms and should also be uniformly accessible for all our language
-bindings.
-
-WARNING.....  Therefore, assuming these plans are implemented, the present
-part of our date/time PLplot API that uses POSIX time routines will be
-changed.
-
-5.7 Alpha value support
-
-PLplot core has been modified to support a transparency or alpha value
-channel for each color in color map 0 and 1. In addition a number of new
-functions were added the PLplot API so that the user can both set and query
-alpha values for color in the two color maps. These functions have the same
-name as their non-alpha value equivalents, but with a an "a" added to the
-end. Example 30 demonstrates some different ways to use these functions
-and the effects of alpha values, at least for those drivers that support alpha
-values. This change should have no effect on the device drivers that do not
-currently support alpha values. Currently only the cairo, qt, gd, wxwidgets and
-aquaterm drivers support alpha values. There are some limitations with the gd
-driver due to transparency support in the underlying libgd library.
-
-5.8 New PLplot functions
-
-An enhanced version of plimage, plimagefr has been added. This allows images
-to be plotted using coordinate transformation, and also for the dynamic range
-of the plotted values to be altered. Example 20 has been modified to
-demonstrate this new functionality.
-
-To ensure consistent results in example 21 between different platforms and
-language bindings PLplot now includes a small random number generator within
-the library. plrandd will return a PLFLT random number in the range 0.0-1.0.
-plseed will allow the random number generator to be seeded.
-
-5.9 External libLASi library improvements affecting our psttf device
-
-Our psttf device depends on the libLASi library. libLASi-1.1.0 has just been
-released at http://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=187113 .  We recommend
-using this latest version of libLASi for building PLplot and the psttf
-device since this version of libLASi is more robust against glyph
-information returned by pango/cairo/fontconfig that on rare occasions is not
-suitable for use by libLASi.
-
-5.10 Improvements to the cairo driver family
-
-Jonathan Woithe improved the xcairo driver so that it can optionally be
-used with an external user supplied X Drawable. This enables a nice
-separation of graphing (PLplot) and window management (Gtk, etc..). Doug
-Hunt fixed the bugs that broke the memcairo driver and it is now fully
-functional. Additionally, a new extcairo driver was added that will plot
-into a user supplied cairo context.
-
-5.11 wxWidgets driver improvements
-
-Complete reorganization of the driver code. A new backend was added, based
-on the wxGraphicsContext class, which is available for wxWidgets 5.8.4
-and later. This backend produces antialiased output similar to the
-AGG backend but has no dependency on the AGG library. The basic wxDC
-backend and the wxGraphicsContext backend process the text output
-on their own, which results in much nicer plots than with the standard
-Hershey fonts and is much faster than using the freetype library. New
-options were introduced in the wxWidgets driver:
- - backend: Choose backend: (0) standard, (1) using AGG library,
-                            (2) using wxGraphicsContext
- - hrshsym: Use Hershey symbol set (hrshsym=0|1)
- - text: Use own text routines (text=0|1)
- - freetype: Use FreeType library (freetype=0|1)
-The option "text" changed its meaning, since it enabled the FreeType library
-support, while now the option enables the driver's own text routines.
-
-Some other features were added:
- * the wxWidgets driver now correctly clears the background (or parts of it)
- * transparency support was added
- * the "locate mode" (already available in the xwin and tk driver) was
-   implemented, where graphics input events are processed and translated
-   to world coordinates
-
-5.12 pdf driver improvements
-
-The pdf driver (which is based on the haru library http://www.libharu.org)
-processes the text output now on its own. So far only the Adobe Type1
-fonts are supported. TrueType font support will follow. Full unicode
-support will follow after the haru library will support unicode strings. The
-driver is now able to produce A4, letter, A5 and A3 pages. The Hershey font
-may be used only for symbols. Output can now be compressed, resulting in
-much smaller file sizes.
-Added new options:
- - text: Use own text routines (text=0|1)
- - compress: Compress pdf output (compress=0|1)
- - hrshsym: Use Hershey symbol set (hrshsym=0|1)
- - pagesize: Set page size (pagesize=A4|letter|A3|A5)
-
-5.13 svg driver improvements
-
-This device driver has had the following improvements: schema for generated
-file now validates properly at http://validator.w3.org/ for the
-automatically detected document type of SVG 1.1; -geometry option now works;
-alpha channel transparency has been implemented; file familying for
-multipage examples has been implemented; coordinate scaling has been
-implemented so that full internal PLplot resolution is used; extraneous
-whitespace and line endings that were being injected into text in error have
-now been removed; and differential correction to string justification is now
-applied.
-
-The result of these improvements is that our SVG device now gives the
-best-looking results of all our devices.  However, currently you must be
-careful of which SVG viewer or editor you try because a number of them have
-some bugs that need to be resolved.  For example, there is a librsvg bug in
-text placement (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=525023) that
-affects all svg use within GNOME as well as the ImageMagick "display"
-application.  However, at least the latest konqueror and firefox as well as
-inkscape and scribus-ng (but not scribus!) give outstanding looking results
-for files generated by our svg device driver.
-
-5.14 Ada language support
-
-We now have a complete Ada bindings implemented for PLplot. We also have a
-complete set of our standard examples implemented in Ada which give results
-that are identical with corresponding results for the C standard examples.
-This is an excellent test of a large subset of the Ada bindings. We now
-enable Ada by default for our users and request widespread testing of this
-new feature.
-
-5.15 OCaml language support
-
-Thanks primarily to Hezekiah M. Carty's efforts we now have a complete OCaml
-bindings implemented for PLplot. We also have a complete set of our standard
-examples implemented in OCaml which give results that are identical with
-corresponding results for the C standard examples. This is an excellent test
-of a large subset of the OCaml bindings. We now enable OCaml by default for
-our users and request widespread testing of this new feature.
-
-5.16 Perl/PDL language support
-
-Thanks to Doug Hunt's efforts the external Perl/PDL module,
-PDL::Graphics::PLplot version 0.46 available at
-http://search.cpan.org/dist/PDL-Graphics-PLplot has been brought up to date
-to give access to recently added PLplot API.  The instructions for how to
-install this module on top of an official PDL release are given in
-examples/perl/README.perldemos. Doug has also finished implementing a
-complete set of standard examples in Perl/PDL which are part of PLplot and
-which produce identical results to their C counterparts if the above updated
-module has been installed.  Our build system tests the version of
-PDL::Graphics::PLplot that is available, and if it is not 0.46 or later, the
-list of Perl/PDL examples that are run as part of our standard tests is
-substantially reduced to avoid examples that use the new functionality.  In
-sum, if you use PDL::Graphics::PLplot version 0.46 or later the full
-complement of PLplot commands is available to you from Perl/PDL, but
-otherwise not.
-
-5.17 Updates to various language bindings
-
-A concerted effort has been made to bring all the language bindings up to
-date with recently added functions. Ada, C++, f77, f95, Java, OCaml, Octave,
-Perl/PDL, Python, and Tcl now all support the common PLplot API (with the
-exception of the mapping functions which are not yet implemented for all
-bindings due to technical issues.) This is a significant step forward for
-those using languages other than C.
-
-5.18 Updates to various examples
-
-To help test the updates to the language bindings the examples have been
-thoroughly checked. Ada, C, C++, f77, f95, and OCaml now contain a full set
-of non-interactive tests (examples 1-31 excluding 14 and 17). Java, Octave,
-Python and Tcl are missing example 19 because of the issue with the mapping
-functions. The examples have also been checked to ensure consistent results
-between different language bindings. Currently there are still some minor
-differences in the results for the tcl examples, probably due to rounding
-errors.  Some of the Tcl examples (example 21) require Tcl version 8.5 for
-proper support for NaNs.
-
-Also new is an option for the plplot_test.sh script to run the examples
-using a debugging command. This is enabled using the --debug option. The
-default it to use the valgrind memory checker. This has highlighted at
-least one memory leaks in PLplot which have been fixed. It is not part
-of the standard ctest tests because it can be _very_ slow for a complete
-set of language bindings and device drivers.
-
-5.19 Extension of our test framework
-
-The standard test suite for PLplot now carries out a comparison of the
-stdout output (especially important for example 31 which tests most of our
-set and get functions) and PostScript output for different languages as a
-check.  Thanks to the addition of example 31, the inclusion of examples 14
-and 17 in the test suite and other recent extensions of the other
-examples we now have rigorous testing in place for almost the entirety
-of our common API.  This extensive testing framework has already helped
-us track down a number of bugs, and it should make it much easier for us
-to maintain high quality for our ongoing PLplot releases.
-
-5.20 Rename test subdirectory to plplot_test
-
-This change was necessary to quit clashing with the "make test" target which
-now works for the first time ever (by executing ctest).
-
-5.21 Website support files updated
-
-Our new website content is generated with PHP and uses CSS (cascaded style
-sheets) to implement a consistent style.  This new approach demanded lots of
-changes in the website support files that are used to generate and upload
-our website and which are automatically included with the release.
-
-5.22 Internal changes to function visibility
-
-The internal definitions of functions in PLplot have been significantly
-tidied up to allow the use of the -fvisibility=hidden option with newer
-versions of gcc. This prevents internal functions from being exported
-to the user where possible. This extends the existing support for this
-on windows.
-
-5.23 Dynamic driver support in Windows
-
-An interface based on the ltdl library function calls was established
-which allows to open and close dynamic link libraries (DLL) during
-run-time and call functions from these libraries. As a consequence
-drivers can now be compiled into single DLLs separate from the core
-PLplot DLL also in Windows. The cmake option ENABLE_DYNDRIVERS is now
-ON by default for Windows if a shared PLplot library is built.
-
-5.24 Documentation updates
-
-The DocBook documentation has been updated to include many of the
-C-specific functions (for example plAlloc2dGrid) which are not part
-of the common API, but are used in the examples and may be helpful
-for PLplot users.
-
-5.25 libnistcd (a.k.a. libcd) now built internally for -dev cgm
-
-CGM format is a long-established (since 1987) open standard for vector
-graphics that is supported by w3c (see http://www.w3.org/Graphics/WebCGM/).
-PLplot has long had a cgm device driver which depended on the (mostly)
-public domain libcd library that was distributed in the mid 90's by National
-Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and which is still available
-from http://www.pa.msu.edu/ftp/pub/unix/cd1.3.tar.gz.  As a convenience
-to our -dev cgm users, we have brought that
-source code in house under lib/nistcd and now build libnistcd routinely
-as part of our ordinary builds.  The only changes we have made to the
-cd1.3 source code is visibility changes in cd.h and swapping the sense of
-the return codes for the test executables so that 0 is returned on success
-and 1 on failure.  If you want to test libnistcd on your platform,
-please run
-
-make test_nistcd
-
-in the top-level build tree.  (That tests runs all the test executables
-that are built as part of cd1.3 and compares the results that are generated
-with the *.cgm files that are supplied as part of cd1.3.)
-
-Two applications that convert and/or display CGM results on Linux are
-ralcgm (which is called by the ImageMagick convert and display applications)
-and uniconvertor.
-
-Some additional work on -dev cgm is required to implement antialiasing and
-non-Hershey fonts, but both those should be possible using libnistcd according
-to the text that is shown by lib/nistcd/cdtext.cgm and lib/nistcd/cdexp1.cgm.
-
-5.26 get-drv-info now changed to test-drv-info
-
-To make cross-building much easier for PLplot we now configure the *.rc
-files that are used to describe our various dynamic devices rather than
-generating the required *.rc files with get-drv-info.  We have changed the
-name of get-drv-info to test-drv-info.  That name is more appropriate
-because that executable has always tested dynamic loading of the driver
-plug-ins as well as generating the *.rc files from the information gleaned
-from that dynamic loading.  Now, we simply run test-drv-info as an option
-(defaults to ON unless cross-building is enabled) and compare the resulting
-*.rc file with the one configured by cmake to be sure the dynamic device
-has been built correctly.
-
-5.27 Text clipping now enabled by default for the cairo devices
-
-When correct text clipping was first implemented for cairo devices, it was
-discovered that the libcairo library of that era (2007-08) did that clipping
-quite inefficiently so text clipping was disabled by default.  Recent tests
-of text clipping for the cairo devices using libcairo 1.6.4 (released in
-2008-04) shows text clipping is quite efficient now.  Therefore, it is now
-enabled by default.  If you notice a significant slowdown for some libcairo
-version prior to 1.6.4 you can use the option -drvopt text_clipping=0 for
-your cairo device plots (and accept the improperly clipped text results that
-might occur with that option).  Better yet, use libcairo 1.6.4 or later.
-
-5.28 A powerful qt device driver has been implemented
-
-Thanks to the efforts of Alban Rochel of the QSAS team, we now have a new qt
-device driver which delivers the following 9 (!) devices: qtwidget, bmpqt,
-jpgqt, pngqt, ppmqt, tiffqt, epsqt, pdfqt, and svgqt. qtwidget is an
-elementary interactive device where, for now, the possible interactions
-consist of resizing the window and right clicking with the mouse (or hitting
-<return> to be consistent with other PLplot interactive devices) to control
-paging.  The qtwidget overall size is expressed in pixels. bmpqt, jpgqt,
-pngqt, ppmqt, and tiffqt are file devices whose overall sizes are specified
-in pixels and whose output is BMP (Windows bitmap), JPEG, PNG, PPM (portable
-pixmap), and TIFF (tagged image file format) formatted files. epsqt, pdfqt,
-svgqt are file devices whose overall sizes are specified in points (1/72 of
-an inch) and whose output is EPS (encapsulated PostScript), PDF, and SVG
-formatted files.  The qt device driver is based on the powerful facilities
-of Qt4 so all qt devices implement variable opacity (alpha channel) effects
-(see example 30).  The qt devices also use system unicode fonts, and deal
-with CTL (complex text layout) languages automatically without any
-intervention required by the user.  (To show this, try qt device results
-from examples 23 [mathematical symbols] and 24 [CTL languages].)
-
-Our exhaustive Linux testing of the qt devices (which consisted of detailed
-comparisons for all our standard examples between qt device results and the
-corresponding cairo device results) indicates this device driver is mature,
-but testing on other platforms is requested to confirm that maturity. Qt-4.5
-(the version we used for most of our tests) has some essential SVG
-functionality so we recommend that version (downloadable from
-http://www.qtsoftware.com/downloads for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows) for
-svgqt.  One of our developers found that pdfqt was orders of magnitude
-slower than the other qt devices for Qt-4.4.3 on Ubuntu 8.10 installed on a
-64 bit box.  That problem was completely cured by moving to the downloadable
-Qt-4.5 version.  However, we have also had good Qt-4.4.3 pdfqt reports on
-other platforms.  One of our developers also found that all first pages of
-examples were black for just the qtwidget device for Qt-4.5.1 on Mac OS X.
-From the other improvements we see in Qt-4.5.1 relative to Qt-4.4.3 we
-assume this black first page for qtwidget problem also exists for Qt-4.4.3,
-but we haven't tested that combination.
-
-In sum, Qt-4.4.3 is worth trying if it is already installed on your machine,
-but if you run into any difficulty with it please switch to Qt-4.5.x (once
-Qt-4.5.x is installed all you have to do is to put the 4.5.x version of
-qmake in your path, and cmake does the rest).  If the problem persists for
-Qt-4.5, then it is worth reporting a qt bug.
-
-5.29 The PLplot API is now accessible from Qt GUI applications
-
-This important new feature has been implemented by Alban Rochel of the QSAS
-team as a spin-off of the qt device driver project using the extqt device
-(which constitutes the tenth qt device).  See examples/c++/README.qt_example
-for a brief description of a simple Qt example which accesses the PLplot API
-and which is built in the installed examples tree using the pkg-config
-approach. Our build system has been enhanced to configure the necessary
-plplotd-qt.pc file.
-
-5.30 NaN / Inf support for some PLplot functions
-
-Some PLplot now correctly handle Nan or Inf values in the data to be plotted.
-Line plotting (plline etc) and image plotting (plimage, plimagefr) will
-now ignore NaN / Inf values. Currently some of the contour plotting / 3-d
-routines do not handle NaN / Inf values. This functionality will
-depend on whether the language binding used supports NaN / Inf values.
-
-5.31 Various bug fixes
-
-Various bugs in the 5.9.3 release have been fixed including:
-
-- Include missing file needed for the aqt driver on Mac OS X
-- Missing library version number for nistcd
-- Fixes for the qt examples with dynamic drivers disabled
-- Fixes to several tcl examples so they work with plserver
-- Fix pkg-config files to work correctly with Debug / Release build types set
-- Make Fortran command line argument parsing work with shared libraries on Windows
-
-5.32 Cairo driver improvements
-
-Improvements to the cairo driver to give better results for bitmap
-formats when used with anti-aliasing file viewers.
-
-5.33 PyQt changes
-
-Years ago we got a donation of a hand-crafted pyqt3 interface to PLplot
-(some of the functions in plplot_widgetmodule.c in bindings/python) and a
-proof-of-concept example (prova.py and qplplot.py in examples/python), but
-this code did not gain any developer interest and was therefore not
-understood or maintained. Recently one of our core developers has
-implemented a sip-generated pyqt4 interface to PLplot (controlled by
-plplot_pyqt4.sip in bindings/qt_gui/pyqt4) that builds without problems as a
-python extension module, and a good-looking pyqt4 example (pyqt4_example.py
-in examples/python) that works well.  Since this pyqt4 approach is
-maintained by a PLplot developer it appears to have a good future, and we
-have therefore decided to concentrate on pyqt4 and remove the pyqt3 PLplot
-interface and example completely.
-
-5.34 Color Palettes
-
-Support has been added to PLplot for user defined color palette files.
-These files can be loaded at the command line using the -cmap0 or
--cmap1 commands, or via the API using the plspal0 and plspal1 commands.
-The commands cmap0 / plspal0 are used to load cmap0 type files which
-specify the colors in PLplot's color table 0. The commands cmap1 /
-plspal1 are used to load cmap1 type files which specify PLplot's color
-table 1. Examples of both types of files can be found in either the
-plplot-source/data directory or the PLplot installed directory
-(typically /usr/local/share/plplotx.y.z/ on Linux).
-
-5.35 Reimplementation of a "soft landing" when a bad/missing compiler is
-detected
-
-The PLplot core library is written in C so our CMake-based build system will
-error out if it doesn't detect a working C compiler.  However all other
-compiled languages (Ada, C++, D, Fortran, Java, and OCaml) we support are
-optional.  If a working compiler is not available, we give a "soft landing"
-(give a warning message, disable the optional component, and keep going).
-The old implementation of the soft landing was not applied consistently (C++
-was unnecessarily mandatory before) and also caused problems for ccmake (a
-CLI front-end to the cmake application) and cmake-gui (a CMake GUI front-end
-to the cmake application) which incorrectly dropped languages as a result
-even when there was a working compiler.
-
-We now have completely reimplemented the soft landing logic.  The result
-works well for cmake, ccmake, and cmake-gui.  The one limitation of this new
-method that we are aware of is it only recognizes either the default
-compiler chosen by the generator or else a compiler specified by the
-environment variable approach (see Official Notice XII above).  Once CMake
-bug 9220 has been fixed (so that the OPTIONAL signature of the
-enable_language command actually works without erroring out), then our
-soft-landing approach (which is a workaround for bug 9220) will be replaced
-by the OPTIONAL signature of enable_language, and all CMake methods of
-specifying compilers and compiler options will automatically be recognized
-as a result.
-
-5.36 Make PLplot aware of LC_NUMERIC locale
-
-For POSIX-compliant systems, locale is set globally so any external
-applications or libraries that use the PLplot library or any external
-libraries used by the PLplot library or PLplot device drivers could
-potentially change the LC_NUMERIC locale used by PLplot to anything those
-external applications and libraries choose. The principal consequence of
-such choice is the decimal separator could be a comma (for some locales)
-rather than the period assumed for the "C" locale.  For previous versions of
-PLplot a comma decimal separator would have lead to a large number of
-errors, but this issue is now addressed with a side benefit that our plots
-now have the capability of displaying the comma (e.g., in axis labels) for
-the decimal separator for those locales which require that.
-
-If you are not satisfied with the results for the default PLplot locale set
-by external applications and libraries, then you can now choose the
-LC_NUMERIC locale for PLplot by (a) specifying the new -locale command-line
-option for PLplot (if you do not specify that option, a default locale is
-chosen depending on applications and libraries external to PLplot (see
-comments above), and (b) setting an environment variable (LC_ALL,
-LC_NUMERIC, or LANG on Linux, for example) to some locale that has been
-installed on your system.  On Linux, to find what locales are installed, use
-the "locale -a" option. The "C" locale is always installed, but usually
-there is also a principal locale that works on a platform such as
-en_US.UTF8, nl_NL.UTF8, etc.  Furthermore, it is straightforward to build
-and install any additional locale you desire.  (For example, on Debian Linux
-you do that by running "dpkg-reconfigure locales".)
-
-Normally, users will not use the -locale option since the period
-decimal separator that you get for the normal LC_NUMERIC default "C"
-locale used by external applications and libraries is fine for their needs.
-However, if the resulting decimal separator is not what the user
-wants, then they would do something like the following to (a) use a period
-decimal separator for command-line input and plots:
-
-LC_ALL=C examples/c/x09c -locale -dev psc -o test.psc -ori 0.5
-
-or (b) use a comma decimal separator for command-line input and plots:
-
-LC_ALL=nl_NL.UTF8 examples/c/x09c -locale -dev psc -o test.psc -ori 0,5
-
-N.B. in either case if the wrong separator is used for input (e.g., -ori 0,5
-in the first case or -ori 0.5 in the second) the floating-point conversion
-(using atof) is silently terminated at the wrong separator for the locale,
-i.e., the fractional part of the number is silently dropped.  This is
-obviously not ideal, but on the other hand there are relatively few
-floating-point command-line options for PLplot, and we also expect those who
-use the -locale option to specifically ask for a given separator for plots
-(e.g., axis labels) will then use it for command-line input of
-floating-point values as well.
-
-Certain critical areas of the PLplot library (e.g., our color palette file
-reading routines and much of the code in our device drivers) absolutely
-require a period for the decimal separator.  We now protect those critical
-areas by saving the normal PLplot LC_NUMERIC locale (established with the
-above -locale option or by default by whatever is set by external
-applications or libraries), setting the LC_NUMERIC "C" locale, executing the
-critical code, then restoring back to the normal PLplot LC_NUMERIC locale.
-Previous versions of PLplot did not have this protection of the critical
-areas so were vulnerable to default LC_NUMERIC settings of external
-applications that resulted in a comma decimal separator that did not work
-correctly for the critical areas.
-
-5.37 Linear gradients have been implemented
-
-The new plgradient routine draws a linear gradient (based on the
-current color map 1) at a specified angle with the x axis for a
-specified polygon.  Standard examples 25 and 30 now demonstrate use of
-plgradient.  Some devices use a software fallback to render the
-gradient.  This fallback is implemented with plshades which uses a
-series of rectangles to approximate the gradient. Tiny alignment
-issues for those rectangles relative to the pixel grid may look
-problematic for transparency gradients.  To avoid that issue, we try
-to use native gradient capability whenever that is possible for any of
-our devices.  Currently, this has been implemented for our svg, qt,
-and cairo devices.  The result is nice-looking smooth transparency
-gradients for those devices, for, e.g., example 30, page 5.
-
-5.38 Cairo Windows driver implemented
-
-A cairo Windows driver has been implemented. This provides an
-interactive cairo driver for Windows similar to xcairo on Linux.
-Work to improve its functionality is ongoing.
-
-5.39 Custom axis labelling implemented
-
-Axis text labels can now be customized using the new plslabelfunc function.
-This allows a user to specify what text should be draw at a given position
-along a plot axis.  Example 19 has been updated to illustrate this function's
-use through labelling geographic coordinates in degrees North, South, East and
-West.
-
-5.40 Universal coordinate transform implemented
-
-A custom coordinate transformation function can be set using plstransform.
-This transformation function affects all subsequent plot function calls which
-work with plot window coordinates.  Testing and refinement of this support is
-ongoing.
-
-5.41 Support for arbitrary storage of 2D user data
-
-This improvement courtesy of David MacMahon adds support for arbitrary
-storage of 2D user data.  This is very similar to the technique employed
-by some existing functions (e.g. plfcont and plfshade) that use "evaluator"
-functions to access 2D user data that is stored in an arbitrary format.
-The new approach extends the concept of a user-supplied (or predefined)
-"evaluator" function to a group of user-supplied (or predefined) "operator"
-functions.  The operator functions provide f...
 
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