Re: octave qui and graphics

[Ben Abbott]

On Feb 5, 2012, at 11:24 AM, Doug Stewart wrote:

> In light of recent emails, I would like a discussion on the direction we are 
> headed for graphics, once the gui is in use.
> 
>   In the past and still we use gnu plot, but fltk is looking quite good.
>  
> The gui is being written in Qt, and Qt has some interesting graphics 
> capabilities.
>  The Qwt project      http://qwtplot3d.sourceforge.net/  looks good but I 
> haven't tried it yet.
> 
> I believe that the graphics capabilities if very important for many users, 
> and specifically the ability to manipulate points on the graph 
> with a mouse, and see the results as the mouse is moving. This will take a 
> very tight integration between the graphics "engine" and 
> the core part of octave.
>  An example:
>   In filter and control design, it would be nice (VERY desirable) to interact 
> with a rlocus plot and see the results on a bode plot, as the mouse is moving.
> Matlab has this capability and this is one of the main reason that I kept 
> Matlab in my class room.
> 
> So the question that I have is:
>   Should we spend more time on fltk, or should we explore the graphics 
> capabilities of Qt?   Qwt being one of them.      
> 
> Doug 

Michael Goffioul has been working on QtHandles for Octave. I assume this would 
(eventually) include uicontrols.

I also assume Qt based uicontrols would require a Qt toolkit.

Thus, I assume the work on a Qt toolkit has begun.

Lots of "assumptions", so I've cc'd Michael so that he may correct me if I'm 
wrong.

Ben