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Manual page for Release_notes_and_current_issues(PL)
Correspondence: scg@jax.org
Download page
Latest version of this page (ploticus.sourceforge.net)
Upgrading from an old version? Check the list of changes that could break old scripts.
Late fixes and issues arising since latest release:
- See also the ploticus discussion group
Version 2.11 - Released May __, 2003
- New - SWF (flash) support - contributed by Bill Traill
- New - Popup text bubbles can be displayed when the mouse pointer hovers over data points when viewing
ploticus-generated images in a web browser. Support for both scripts and prefabs.
Accomplished using client-side imagemaps, with or without a clickable URL.
Click here to see an example.
- Fixed - libploticus API - now supports multiple plot jobs within one OS process.
- New - proc vector - windbarbs support contributed by Andrew Phillips
- New - proc categories - supersedes specification of categories from within
proc areadef. Categories are an entity independent of plotting area or current data set.
- New - proc processdata - new actions segment and segmentb
- New - proc bars - new attributes exactcolorfield, constantlen, constantloc
- New - clickmap support for proc rect
- New - axis - new attribute stublen
- New - pl command line - new option -echo to display interpreted,
fully expanded script lines to stdout or stderr for debugging
- New - proc curvefit - sets ploticus variables XFINAL and YFINAL
- New - proc settings - new attribute svg_tagparms - allows you to insert additional
attributes into the <svg> tag.. eg. <svg .. width="ww" height="hh">
- Improved - libploticus API - improved the consistency of error return codes
- Improved - clickmaps - labels and URLs now use malloced storage
- Improved - categories - category labels now use malloced storage
- Fixed - proc pie - percentages in labels weren't being converted to euro notation
- Fixed - proc axis - very large scale increments were causing race
(fix contributed by Dan Pelleg)
- Workaround - proc usedata - fieldnames are lost when switching between data sets
with proc usedata, due to a design flaw. As a workaround, field names can be respecified from within proc usedata.
- Fixed - proc breakaxis - value now accepts category values containing embedded whitespace
- Fixed - proc axis - self locating stubs were incorrect in Y axis
- Fixed - proc getdata - seg fault involving rejected data rows and filter processing
- Fixed - proc pie - color: auto was not working with legend
- Fixed - unix builds now should handle dos text (script files and data files)
- Fixed - proc axis - fixed axis stub increment "hours" and "minutes" support for
datetime scaling & datetime w/ windowing
- Changed - libploticus API - ploticus_begin() is no longer necessary.
Summary of changes likely to break old scripts & applications
Unless otherwise stated, ploticus versions are designed to be backward-compatible, meaning
that a "well-behaved" script written for an earlier version of ploticus should work
on any later version. However there are several exceptions:
- version 2.10 - several obscure changes:
config file parameters sid, gid, and filesizelimit dropped;
number display format settings dropped from proc page;
proc areadef catcompmethod: fuzzy no longer supported;
proc processdata stack is now no by default, which might be an issue in scripts that use
originaldata to access processdata result data set;
- version 2.03 - pltab no longer supported.
- version 2.03 - proc rect (old name proc bevelrect) - bevelsize must now be specified
in order to get a bevelled rectangle.
- version 2.02 - lines prefab - changed the way that the fill parameter works.
Previously it had applied to all curves and line color was used. Now it is specified
as a color, and separately for each curve (using fill2, fill3, and fill4). This will
break any existing applications that use the lines prefab to render multiple filled curves.
- version 2.00 - New script interpreter resulted in some script syntax changes.
Concatenation of variables is done differently in #set and #if statements,
#setifnotgiven replaces #declare soft, and some other minor issues.
Here are the details.
Areas of ongoing development
I can proceed with Ploticus development as my "day job" allows.
Because Ploticus is now covered under GPL, which allows code to
be freely used in other GPL projects, I am posting here the
areas that I hope to get to in the near future, so that other
developers know where I am headed.
- additional prefabs, eg cumulative percent, heatmap
- overhaul of the gallery and examples, with more cross-references and an index
- XML script syntax option - the plotting procs fit the xml model easily enough
but not sure what to do about flow of control operators such as #if or #for .. #endloop.
- proc axis - when doing tics but no stubs, need a way to range the tics
- bee swarm plots
Requested features not yet implemented
- the ability to run as a persistent daemon and accept commands via named pipe
- a method for automatic annotation placement, including avoidance of annotation, label,
and plot object collisions.
- more 3-D plots and effects
- SVG - a way to display text messages on mouseover
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 data display engine
Copyright Steve Grubb
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