Re: Release Plans

[Robert T. Short]

On 09/29/2013 10:03 AM, Daniel J Sebald wrote:
> On 09/26/2013 01:54 PM, John W. Eaton wrote:
> > On 09/26/2013 02:51 PM, Michael D. Godfrey wrote:
> >
> > > Now, what about the default graphics_toolkit? The GUI seems
> > > fine with fltk. Should this be the default? I know that there are
> > > arguments on both sides. In my case I now always use fltk.
> >
> > I'm OK with making OpenGL+FLTK the default:
> >
> > http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/octave/rev/55680de6a897
> >
> > jwe
>
> I'm not clear on what is gained by OpenGL+FLTK.  If it is a gnuplot 
> license issue, the license is pretty open, it's just that it predates 
> the modern open source licenses and is too much trouble to go back and 
> get approval to modify.  At least, that is my understanding of it.  
> It's seems like hegemony for it to not be an approved license.
>
> I've built Octave with OpenGL and FLTK.  Fedora 14 has FLTK 1.1.10 
> (there is a 1.3 or greater on the latest Fedora...I see there is a 
> Gnome 2 branch called Mate' so I might upgrade sometime this winter).  
> It seems that FLTK is primarily another Widgets provider, similar to 
> Qt. There is support, but it is limited.  Its widgets look different 
> from the rest of the GUI.  For those who haven't tried Octave with 
> gnuplot in the GUI setting, Octave tries as best as possible to use 
> gnuplot's Qt terminal for which the look and feel is a great match.  
> At first blush, Octave/gnuplot with Qt looks nice, and is using one 
> Widget provider.
>
> FLTK doesn't appear to add the object-oriented plot elements, what so 
> many desire; and something I highly discourage much preferring script 
> based plot decoration and refinement because that is reproducible 
> where manual moving plot elements is ephemeral. Neither does gnuplot, 
> but there is a chance of getting such a thing with gnuplot's Qt 
> terminal. (The first time I've ever felt such a thing had a greater 
> than 0% chance.)  If object-oriented plot editing is a goal, it might 
> be wise to make everything just one Widget system, and if I understand 
> correctly, Qt is the choice at this point.
>
> Dan
>
> PS: In both FLTK and gnuplot graphics, "image" is currently crashing 
> Octave on my system.
I am not really sure what Daniel said here, but I really hope the plan 
isn't to make gnuplot go away.  For all the warts, gnuplot makes 
publication quality plots and fltk plots are ugly.  I don't care what 
the defaults are since I am perfectly comfortable making things work the 
way I want them to.

Bob