GNUPLOT VERSION 4.6.4 =================================== This is an incremental release of gnuplot version 4.6. A short list of changes since the previous patchlevel (version 4.6.3) is given below and in the NEWS file. Detailed information is in ChangeLog. New features, changes and fixes since gnuplot version 4.6.3 =========================================================== * NEW Ctrl-Break interrupts fitting run in wgnuplot * CHANGE treat empty fields in a csv file as "missing" rather than "bad" * CHANGE allow reference to more than one column header in 'using' or 'title' * CHANGE install-info is no longer a default "make install" target * CHANGE if a polar plot is autoscaled, try to place the origin at the center * FIX svg and canvas terminal mousing of inverted axis coordinates * FIX emf failed to initialize font correctly on some systems * FIX timedata columns can now be referred to via column(N) and column("HEAD") * FIX qt terminal toggling of enhanced text elements in plot with labels * FIX color/pattern generated for key entries of columnstacked histograms * FIX hitting ^C twice forces temination of wxt session hung by lost X-server * FIX win terminal failed to properly adjust plot border after window resize * FIX several conditions in which macros were not expanded during command input * FIX promote a string containing only digits to INTGR rather than CMPLX * FIX 'set grid front' caused failure to initialize location of axis zero point * FIX very poor precision in mouse coords reported by x11 in -persist mode * FIX parsing of $# (the number of arguments in a "call"). It's not a comment! * FIX memory leak of cropped images using pngcairo terminal * FIX "lc variable" now iterates over linetype colors (not styles) as documented * FIX rtics were sometimes drawn with length 0 NOTES TO PACKAGERS AND TESTERS =============================== Configuration options for interactive use ----------------------------------------- The 4.6 source code supports three primary cross-platform output modes in addition to several platform-specific modes. 1) Cairo/pango/wxWidgets These terminals were introduced in version 4.4 and are now the most stable and full-featured option. This set of terminals includes - pngcairo, pdfcairo, epscairo, and cairolatex for output to a file - wxt for interactive display This is the default configuration, but requires prior installation of libcairo, libpango, libcairo, libwxgtk, and related support libraries To disable these terminals: ./configure --disable-wxt --without-cairo 2) Qt The new qt terminal supports interactive display with menu-driven output to png, svg or pdf. Requires libqt version >= 4.5 ./configure --enable-qt 3) X11 (the "classic" interactive interface) This used to be the preferred interactive interface, but the newer wxt and qt terminals offer nicer output and a wider range of features. Options for output to files --------------------------- Of course the terminals (output modes) present in previous gnuplot versions are also still available. These include, among many more obscure options: - png/jpeg/gif output via libgd - PostScript - Many flavors of TeX/LaTeX output, including TikZ and ConTeXt (new) - Bitmapped output to support many older devices (e.g. HP deskjet, epson, seiko printers, pbm bitmapped graphics files) is available if needed but is no longer configured in by default. Note that the bitmap code copyright is more restrictive than the rest of the gnuplot code. ./configure --with-bitmap-terminals Options for generating interactive plots for web display -------------------------------------------------------- - Mouseable output for display on the web can be created using either the canvas terminal (HTML5 2D canvas element) or the svg terminal. Both allow zooming, toggling plot elements on/off, and user-scriptable hot keys. Online demo plots ----------------- Demo plots illustrating new and old features are online at http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo/ OTHER NOTES =============================== Installation ------------ You can download a source tarball for gnuplot version 4.6.3 from the gnuplot development site on SourceForge. http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2055 Installation instructions are available in the source itself; the short version for linux/unix-like systems is to unpack the tarball and then build it: cd gnuplot-4.6.4 ; ./configure ; make test it: make check install it: make install Pay careful attention to the output of the ./configure script. It may indicate that some output drivers have been omitted because the necessary support libraries were not found. In general you need to have previously installed the "*-devel-*" versions of these libraries. Known issues ------------ - Mac OSX ships with a terminal input library that appears to be GNU libreadline, but isn't really. The program tries to cope with this, but you may get better results by configuring gnuplot to use either its own built-in readline routines or the real GNU libreadline. - The gnuplot build system is not very good at figuring out where to find or install LaTeX-related files. This can affect use of the new lua/tikz and ConTeXt terminals. - You can configure support for both wxt and qt into the same gnuplot executable, but only one of these two output modes can be used in any given gnuplot session. Support ------- Please report all bugs and installation problems to the bug tracker on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=2055&atid=102055 There is also an gnuplot discussion forum on usenet group comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot Development ----------- Gnuplot development is quite active. The development branch on SourceForge contains many new features. The current development branch is labeled version 4.7, but will probably be released as version 5. Feedback and contributions of code are very welcome.