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From: "Robert S. Maier" <rsm@math.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: plotutils announcement
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 98 18:08:36 GMT
To: gnu@gnu.org
Release 2.1 of the GNU plotting utilities is now available at
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/plotutils-2.1.tar.gz . It should soon be
available via ftp from the GNU mirror sites. A list of mirror sites is
appended below; please try them before you try ftp.gnu.org.
Release 2.1 is mostly a bug fix release, but it includes a few new
features.
1. The `spline' program now supports the splining of multidimensional
(i.e. vector-valued) datasets. Both the splining of vector-valued
functions and the splining of curves in multidimensional space are
supported.
2. The `graph' program is no longer restricted to the five default
colors (red,green,blue,magenta,cyan) when plotting datasets in color.
A `--pen-colors' option has been added.
3. The `plot' program now supports a `--page-number'
option, for extracting single pages from multipage graphics files.
4. The `plot' program can now read the ascii plot file format
produced by the Unix plottoa(1) filter.
5. GNU libplot, the underlying vector graphics library, now provides
additional support for selecting the size and background color of an
X window. So new options `--bitmap-size' and `--bg-color' have been
added to the `graph', `plot', and `tek2plot' programs.
The most recent section of the toplevel NEWS file, reproduced below, gives
some additional details. As always, you should read the toplevel
INSTALL.pkg file before attempting to install the package.
Enjoy. (Comments, suggestions, and bug reports are welcome.)
--
Robert S. Maier | Internet: rsm@math.arizona.edu
Dept. of Math. |
Univ. of Arizona | FAX: +1 520 621 8322
Tucson, AZ 85721 | Voice: +1 520 621 6892 (department)
U.S.A. | +1 520 621 2617 (office)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 2.1 released, 4/98. [Includes libplot 1.0, interface age=1.]
graph: may access the new Euro currency symbol by using the '\eu' escape
sequence. This may be used when labelling the axes of graphs, etc.
Accessible whenever the current font is a Postscript or PCL
font. Be sure to install the Postscript fonts accompanying the
plotutils distribution on your X server, if you wish to see it.
Whether or not you see the new symbol when you send a plot to
a Postscript or a PCL printer, depends on whether or the printer
has up-to-date firmware. (E.g., HP LaserJet 5's don't.)
libplot: may access the new Euro symbol, when drawing text strings in
a Postscript or PCL font, by using the '\eu' escape sequence.
fonts: the included Type1 Symbol font, from URW++, now includes the
Euro glyph (the new European currency symbol).
libplot: X driver no longer prints a warning message when substituting
a Hershey font for an unavailable PS font. (Substitution often
occurs when the X server doesn't support anamorphically transformed
fonts, e.g. if it's a pre-X11R6 server.) Warning message was
confusing `graph' end-users.
libplot: fixed a bug in X driver that was selecting fonts based on point
size rather than pixel size, leading to different-sized labels
on X displays of different resolution. This affected
graph,plot,tek2plot.
libplot: fixed a sign error in x_erase.c that prevented erase()
from working on Sun's OpenWindows 3.0 X server, and other
early X11 displays; this affected graph,plot,tek2plot.
graph,plot,tek2plot: --bitmap-size option added, affecting output
on X displays only.
libplot: added BITMAPSIZE device driver parameter, which currently
affects only X Plotters (sets size of popped-up window).
plot: new --page-number option, cf. tek2plot.
graph,plot,tek2plot: on X11R6 systems, now linked with -lSM -lICE in
the correct way (-lSM -lICE -lXext -lX11 follows -lXt on command
line). This previously caused problems on cygwin32 systems.
libplot: X Drawable Plotters now use parameters XDRAWABLE_DISPLAY etc.,
in accordance with documentation, rather than X_DRAWABLE_DISPLAY etc.
tek2plot: when parsing multipage Tektronix files, now calls
openpl()..closepl() on each page. So `tek2plot -TX' now yields
multiple X windows, unless the --page-number option is used.
libplot: PS driver hacked so that output, when openpl..closepl is invoked
more than once, is closer to conforming to the PS DSC (document
structuring conventions). You may modify the PS file so that it
is fully conformant (remove extraneous %%EOF's, i.e., all but the
final one, and correct the pagecount on the %%Pages line).
When openpl..closepl is invoked only once, it is fully conformant.
graph,plot,tek2plot: --bg-color option added, for use on X displays only.
libplot: new bgcolor() and bgcolorname() functions added to API.
They affect only X and X Drawable Plotters. Libplot API version
bumped to 1:0:1 (i.e. version 1.0, supporting 0.x interface also).
graph: new --pen-colors option, allowing the specification of the color
of each of the five pens used for drawing colored plots. The
default choice is the usual "1=red:2=green:3=blue:4=magenta:5=cyan".
spline: some numerical instability problems fixed (tension parameter may
now be taken arbitrarily close to zero without ill effects).
spline: support for multidimensional splines added (-d, -s, -A options)
spline: now tests for monotonicity of abscissa variable in each dataset
graph,spline,double: now test for NaN's (not-a-number's) when reading
floating point numbers from an input file. plot already did this.
plot: When reading input files in plot(5) format, negative integers
(i.e. negative integer coordinates) now parsed correctly.
plot: Multiple '\n' separator characters now ignored in
portable GNU metafiles, and in input files in `-A' format too.
plot: -A option (replacing -I, which disappeared with 1.x) added and
documented. It enables metafiles in the ascii version of plot(5)
format (e.g., obtained with Unix plottoa(1)) to be plotted; also
it will handle portable GNU metafiles generated by plotutils-1.x.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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