Re: [Plplot-devel] Help with plD_dispatch_init_win3 needed

[Geoffrey F. <fu...@ga...>]

Joao Cardoso writes:
 > | From plcore.h, I find that the old seq # for the win3 driver was 10.
 > | I would preserve that one on the assumption that it made sense, unless
 > | you have a particular reason to push it down the stack.  In general I
 > | think the rule is to get the sequence number of the drivers ordered so
 > | that the default interactive driver for each platfrom will be the top
 > | one listed in the display.  Dunno if that's strictly possible since
 > | there are numerous possible interactive drivers on some platforms, and
 > | whose to say which one is the best default, but that's at least the
 > | general idea.
 > 
 > This implies that the most recent drivers should appear after the old ones, 
 > for a given platform, preserving the order that users are used to. The gnome 
 > driver violates this, as it appears before the tk driver, which is older. 
 > This has always puzzled me, but I didn't change it, as I thought that the 
 > question had already been discussed.

Yes, I noticed that too.  It was not discussed that I know of.
However, I don't feel strongly about it.  I usually just type "tk",
since xwin is the top choice, and you have to type /something/ if you
want other than xwin.  So because of this, the order isn't
extraordinarily important.  Changing xwin to not be the default top
choice on Unix, would raise my eyebrows.

I think the way to go after this, would be to formalize the concept of
the driver sequence registry, and write some documentation for it.
Without such effort, we are just winging it, and that is okay with me
since we have plenty to attend to that is of genuinely higher
priority. 

 > |  The file oriented drivers show up lower on the list.
 > |
 > | The master registry of seq numbers is not at all clear right now,
 > | sorry.  We should somehow formalize this better.  Maybe an enum for
 > | the driver sequencing id defined somewhere, I'm not sure what's best.
 > | Anyway, there's an "#if 0/#endif" block in plcore.h, which I left
 > | there so we can refer to it as we update all the driver code.  Someday
 > | that should be summarily expunged, but I think someone should dump a
 > | little effort into formalizing the device sequencing registry before
 > | we take that final step.
 > |
 > | I am not volunteering, so if anyone is inclined, go ahead.