Re: unified FLTK & Gnuplot printing

[Ben Abbott]

On Aug 23, 2010, at 9:13 PM, Ben Abbott wrote:

> I've prepared a changeset to unify the printing for both the FLTK and Gnuplot 
> backends.
> 
> For both backends, ghostscript is relied upon more heavily than before. 
> Ghostscript is used to produce most output formats from an eps image of the 
> figure.  The output formats based upon an eps image are bmp, jpg, pbm, pcx, 
> pdf, pgm, pgn, pnm, ppm, ps, and tiff. Using an eps image as the basis for 
> most output formats allow all those formats to benefit from efforts invested 
> in eps output.
> 
> Some improvements to Gnuplot printing include;
> 
> (1) The "-tight" option applies to all output derived from eps files.
> (2) The size option "-SXSIZE,YSIZE'" applies to all output formats which 
> accept size specifications.
> (3) The font option "-FFONTNAME:SIZE" applies to all output formats which 
> accept font specification.
> (4) The "output_to_paper", "implicit_margin", and "__pixels_per_inch__" 
> variables have been eliminated.
> (5) As ps and pdf output are derived by placing an eps image on a page, the 
> paper properties are handled precisely.
> 
> The above options also apply to the FLTK backend. In addtion, the "-mono", 
> "-color", "-solid" and "-dashed" options apply to all output formats, for 
> both backends, that support these line types.
> 
> Other noticeable changes are improvements in placement/spacing of the axes 
> and tick labels. These improvements are most noticeable for the Gnuplot 
> "aqua", and "svg" terminals. In addition, the Gnuplot "eps" output now 
> produces the fontsizes specified by the object properties (before they were 
> half the size ... a Gnuplot feature).
> 
> While I've done a lot of testing, more is needed. In particular, I'd like to 
> see printing to non-postscript printers tested on Linux, BSD, and Windows 
> (mingw, cygwin, and native if possible).
> 
> If anyone has a favorite output format, please take the time to check it now 
> before my feeble memory forgets the details of what I've done ;-)
> 
> If no significant problems surface by the end of the week, I'll push this 
> changeset.
> 
> Ben
> 
> <changeset.patch>

This is a refresh of the changeset. The color/mono option is handled by gnuplot 
(rather than changing the RGB values in Octave). I've also attempted to have 
the gnuplot backend produce level1 ps output for eps, epsc, ps, and psc output 
(not sure that it is working).

Before committing, I still need to either mark the temp files, or delete them.

Ben

changeset.patch
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