From: Michael H. <mic...@un...> - 2005-01-27 13:29:54
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Hi everybody, Andre Wobst wrote: > > [...] In gnuplot so many thinks are hard-wired. This is good for sure > in the first taste and works well as long as you can fit you needs > into what gnuplot can do (not the other way around!), but as soon as > you want just a little more, gnuplot as a whole is no help anymore. Ready made plot schemes would be a great help though. Everytime I go back to producing a plot, I think about this. I think about adding two (relatively thin) layers of abstraction: 1) A "library" with at most 2 or three plotting functions, which produce plots with "sane defaults" (as default parameters and/or based on the data) and handle the already supported data formats. Even not having to write the contructor and the "writeEPSfile" would be a help. 2) A simple commandline tool, that supports very basic file "formats" (think columns of numbers, like gnuplot) and maybe even a "guess" mode based on the structure of the input. A "gallery" (everybody loves thumbnails ;) on the website could provide the starting point to quickly get an impression of your data the way you intend to (and maybe the way you know from other tools). This would also address several points that often pop up on this mailing list, by providing: - A more comprehensive place to look for the "how do I..." things (think of a generic set of examples) - A more robust interface for the mundane everyday tasks. - A set of "unit tests" which might help to pinpoint and document the changes in the underlying pyx layer. The backdraws, as I see them, are: - Takes time and effort ;-) - My own (unfrequent) plotting needs don't typically fall into standard patterns. But even unwieldy (but easy made) plots would sometimes be a big help. However, if there's interest and input on this, I'd be interested in working on this. regards, michael |