[Plplot-devel] Re: [Plplot-general] How to Build PLplot to use with Tcl-tk

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

Hello Pankaj:

You may not be aware of this, but your cross-posting to both plplot_general
and plplot_devel is an annoyance to those who are subscribed to both lists
since we see your posts twice.

My own feeling is you are asking fairly technical questions so your posts
should go to plplot_devel only.

With regard to the content of your particular message, I would know exactly
how to answer you in a Linux environment.  You need libgd, libpng, libjpeg,
and zlib in order to compile the gd.c device driver (which implements the
png and jpeg devices).

The problem with the Plplot windows environment is it is only supported by
one guy (Olof Svensson, who is subscribed to plplot_devel, but is not part
of the core team because of lack of time on his part.) The primary focus of
plplot core development team is oriented toward the Unix/Linux side, and
Olof keeps up as well as he can on the windows side in his spare time.  So
you may have to figure out for yourself how to get the gd device implemented
in that environment.  The first step would be to create libgd for the
windows environment.  For instructions on that, see
http://www.boutell.com/gd/manual2.0.9.html.

If you don't have the time/skills to do that, then there is hope for you in
about another 6 months or so. The natural way to get access to all the
Unix/Linux side developments (such as the gd device driver) in windows is to
use the new configuration scheme to build plplot in a cygwin environment.
(Cygwin is a free implementation of Unix for windows.) Unfortunately, that
does not quite work yet because of current incompatibilities between
autotools and cygwin. We are very close, since everything compiles on Cygwin
without problems, but there seems to be a linking problem which lots of
other projects have also encountered. Since both autotools and cygwin are
developed by the FSF, and people are clamoring for a simple solution, I
fully expect that situation to be resolved on a fairly short time scale.
Thus, I am planning to try testing it again in 6 months or so.

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
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