Gnuplot version 4.2 announced

Jon:

I attach a release announcement for gnuplot version 4.2
Please consider this for mention on the LWN Development page.

The gnuplot development project on SourceForge lives at URL

   http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuplot

A nice page of demos using the new gnuplot version lives at

   http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo/

Of particular note in this release is support for screen
display via a new gnuplot terminal type "wxt", based on
the wxWidgets, Cairo, Pango libraries.  This gives superb
font rendering and plot anti-aliasing.  

Anyone interested in the future directions of gnuplot development
may want to have a look also at upcoming features showcased on
the demo site for the CVS development version

   http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo_4.3/


-- 
Ethan A Merritt
(sfeam@users.sourceforge.net)

	    OFFICIAL RELEASE OF GNUPLOT VERSION 4.2
	    =======================================

We are delighted to announce the release of gnuplot version 4.2.
It has been almost 3 years since release of the previous version 4.0, but
we have put this time to good use.  Version 4.2 contains a ton of new
features, support for several new output devices, and improved performance
when plotting large data sets.  For a complete list of new features, see 
the NEWS file that comes with the program.

Major additions include

	* Text strings can be read and manipulated as normal data
	* New interactive terminal based on wxWidgets, pango and cairo
	* New 2D plot styles 'histogram' 'labels' 'image' 'rgbimage'
	* New 3D plot styles 'labels' 'vectors' 'image' 'rgbimage'
	* User control over color definitions and color use in plots
	* Improved font handling and text formatting
	* New syntax to handle string variables and string functions
	* Creation of animated gif sequences
	* Support for UTF-8 and other multi-byte font encodings
	* Japanese language documentation and internal help

Demo plots illustrating these and other features are online at

	http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo_4.2/

You can download a source tarball for gnuplot version 4.2 from the 
gnuplot development site on SourceForge. Pre-built binaries for
selected platforms will appear presently.

	http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2055


Installation
------------
Installation instructions are available in the source itself; the short
version for linux/unix-like systems is to unpack the tarball and then
build it:
		cd gnuplot-4.2.0 ; ./configure ; make
test it:
		make check
install it:
		make install


Known issues
------------
- Installation of the new wxt terminal under OSX and Solaris is problematic
- Plot styles image and rgbimage are marked EXPERIMENTAL; their implementation
  is incomplete and may change in future versions of gnuplot
- MSWindows support for mouse/keyboard events is incomplete


Support
-------
Please report all bugs and installation problems to the bug tracker
on SourceForge:

	http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=2055&atid=10...

There is also an active gnuplot discussion forum on usenet group

	comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot


Development
-----------
Gnuplot development is quite active. The development branch (4.3) on 
SourceForge contains preliminary implementations of many new features;
feedback and additional contributions of code are very welcome.