[Plplot-devel] Fundamental program design question: How to advance the page ?

[Joachim W. <wu...@cr...>]

In the official plplot examples, the main program is kind of a batch =
job,
as often occurs in numeric applications, and the user interacts via the
graphical frontend only: The main program produces one plot, then
waits for the user to acknoledge. In the MSWindows binding, the user
has to single-click the right mouse button.=20

   QUESTION: is this intended, and is similar behaviour implemented for
the other operation systems as well ?

Now there is another important class of programs which may be called
dialog-driven, in contrast to the batch programs mentioned before. In a
dialog-driven application, the user interacts directly with the main =
program,
and therefore we should be able to erase a page and start plotting a new
one without requiring a redundant mouse click.

   SIDE REMARK: Dialog-driven numeric programs where almost unheard of =
when
pgplot and other predecessors of plplot were designed down in about the =
70's.

   BACKGROUND QUESTION: Has it ever been discussed how to support =
dialog-driven
applications in a consistent manner within the given overall design of =
plplot ?

   PRACTICAL QUESTION: Which sequence of pleop, pladv, plbop or similar
should produce the desired behaviour (full software control over page =
advance) ?

   AD-HOC SOLUTION: Within MSWindows, I helped myself by just setting
dev->nextPlot =3D 1 instead of 0 at two locations in win3.cpp. =
Introducing a
precompiler macro AUTOADVANCE could formalise this solution. However, I
suppose a cleaner solution would be through some pl*** function.

Best regards to all, Joachim