Octave workshop for Octave 3.0.0 on windows Xp

[John W. Eaton]

On 28-Mar-2008, Kaisa S wrote:

| 
| I have tried to find an answer to this question without sucess - Is there a
| Octave workshop or other solution that make my octave 3.0.0 for Windows at
| least look slightly like MatLab ( it is currently running in a DOS-style
| window and I find it hard to read with the white text on black).

You should be able to change the font and colors.  Perhaps a Windows
user of Octave will be able to help you with the details of just how
to do that.

Other than the font and color scheme, what is so different about
typing commands at the Octave prompt compared to typing commands at
the Matlab prompt, except that the Matlab command window has a lot of
other goop surrounding it?  Or do you not type at the Matlab prompt in
the Matlab command window when you use Matlab?  If you don't type
commands at the Matlab prompt, then how do you get anything done?

It seems that many people are disappointed in some way because Octave
doesn't have a GUI.  But I just don't see that Matlab's GUI interface
is all that useful, so it would be helpful to understand what it
provides that is so essential.

I have also seen people saying how happy they are to have QtOctave,
and the last time I looked, that actually prevents you from typing at
the Octave prompt and forces you to type in a small text box that
takes full command line history and editing away from you[*].  In that
sense, it provides *less* than the normal "DOS-style" window.  Is it
just that having a window surrounded by "File" and "Edit" buttons is
comforting?

Please don't take these comments the wrong way.  I'm seriously trying
to understand what it is that makes the Matlab GUI so essential to so
many users.  Perhaps it is only a few small features that would not be
so hard to add to Octave.

| Or should I
| install an older version of Octave ( an if so which one and together with
| which Octave workshop version?).

Why would you want to use Octave Workshop, since it is apparently no
longer maintained and, as I understand it, was never fully functional
anyway?

jwe

[*] Though it just occurred to me that this is the way some instant
    messaging clients work, so maybe this style of interaction seems
    normal to people who have grown up with IM clients?