Re: Choosing graphics backend for documentation

[Daniel J Sebald]

On 08/17/2015 02:22 AM, Michael Godfrey wrote:
> On 08/17/2015 01:52 AM, Ben Abbott wrote:
> > > On Aug 16, 2015, at 8:19 PM, Michael
> > > Godfrey<address@hidden> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >On 08/16/2015 10:59 PM, Daniel J Sebald wrote:
> > > > >>What figures can't be drawn?
> > > > >>
> > > > >>Dan
> > > >Besides Fig. 15-7, the Plotting section will need extensive rewrite to
> > > >document a system with gnuplot only.
> > I don’t think the documentation should change if only gnuplot is
> > present … is that what you meant?
> >
> > For me, the question is whether or not the documentation can be
> > generated only using gnuplot.
> >
> > Ben
> It appears that I do not understand what is being proposed here. If the
> indent is to
> provide users of Octave with a version which only supports gnuplot for
> plotting then
> the current manual is not appropriate for them. There has always been an
> issue due
> to the fact that there has only been one version of the manual, but
> Octave can be
> built with or without various features. But, the maintenance of a single
> Octave
> overrides this. Note that if OpenGL is not available the gui will not be
> either.
>
> This gnuplot only system seems to be needed only in the case where users
> are building Octave
> from source. Most users will install a packaged Octave. If they want a
> Manual they
> have to obtain it from the Octave site. The reason for including the
> Manual source
> files is for developers use. So, it appears that the only use for this
> option is for
> developers use on systems which lack any working OpenGL. Most developers
> will
> need to have a system which is capable of generating a fully functional
> Octave for
> testing. This requires OpenGL.

As far as the manual goes, "working" is the key word.  With the recent 
development version I get errors, and the make process keeps attempting 
to build the manual.  The solution for me is to just configure off the 
documentation and not worry about it.  Could the manual build be 
configured off by default?  Then have

make manualwithqttoolkit
make manualwithgnuplottoolkit
make manual (default whatever)


> If this effort is intended to provide users a new version of Octave
> which does not depend on
> OpenGL than this should be made explicit and agreed on through the
> developers list.
>
> The current Manual states:
> > Earlier versions of Octave provided plotting through the use of
> > gnuplot. This capability is
> > still available. But, a newer plotting capability is provided by
> > access to OpenGL. Which
> > plotting system is used is controlled by the graphics_toolkit
> > function. See Section 15.4.7
> > [Graphics Toolkits], page 403.
>
> I do not think that this should be changed to state something like
> "versions of Octave
> which lack OpenGL, and therefore lack the graphics_toolkit and the GUI
> interface are
> also supported. Please see the release documentation for details..."

graphics_toolkit.m isn't used if there is no OpenGL?

Dan