[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #31583] pre-register available backends

[Rik]

Update of bug #31583 (project octave):

                Category:                    None => Plotting               
                Priority:              5 - Normal => 3 - Low                

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Follow-up Comment #2:

It seems like overkill to have to instantiate a backend just to list it. 
However, some way of knowing what backends are available would be valuable. 
Currently, the native backend is a sort of Heisenberg functionality; you don't
know if it exists until you go and actually use it.  This is good in
preventing a feature that is not quite ready for general distribution from
seeing a lot of usage except by people in the know.  However, the FLTK backend
seems pretty advanced and it would not be a bad thing if more people started
using it and finding any errors in the code.

I completely agree that "available_backends" is not very descriptive.  I
assume Matlab has only it's own backend and therefore there is no precedent to
follow.  Do we want to open a discussion on the maintainers list for a
possible replacement name?  Here are some names that I like:
plot_engine
plot_renderer
graphics_engine
graphics_renderer

It might be nice to incorporate the set/get functionality into a single
function as well.  Currently one uses available_backends to see a list of
renderers and backend(NAME) to set the actual renderer.  What if backend,
without any input/output arguments, returned the list of available backends. 
backend with a single output argument would return the currently selected
backend.  backend (NAME) would set the desired renderer.


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