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  <td><br><h2>Release notes and current issues</h2></td>
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  <a href="../doc/Welcome.html"><img src="../doc/ploticus.gif" border=0></a><br>
  <a href="../doc/Welcome.html">Welcome</a> &nbsp; &nbsp;
  <a href="../gallery/index.html">Gallery</a> &nbsp; &nbsp;
  <a href="../doc/Contents.html">Handbook</a> 
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.TH Release_notes_and_current_issues PL "17-SEP-2001   PL www.sgpr.net"

.ig >>

<li> <a href="../doc/Problems.html">Correspondence</a>: steve@sgpr.net
<li> <a href="../doc/Download.html">Download page</a>
<li> <a href="http://www.sgpr.net/doc/Versions.html">Latest version of this page</a> (www.sgpr.net)
<br>
<br>
<br>
<h2>Current version: 2.00 (XX XXX '01)</h2>
<font size=+1>
This major release introduces
<a href="prefabs.html">prefabs</a> for creating standard types of plots
directly from the command line,
<a href="cgi.html">CGI mode</a>,
and optional JPEG, WBMP, and FreeType2 support.
The script interpreter code has been completely replaced;
a general clean-up pass was applied to all code.
<br>
<br>
Specific new features:
</font>
<ul>
<li><a href="prefabs.html">Prefabs</a> 
<br>
<br>
<li><a href="cgi.html">CGI mode</a>
<br>
<br>
<li> Optional JPEG, WBMP, and <a href="fonts.html">FreeType2</a> support, however you must link to 
your own copy of GD library version 1.84 
or higher when you build ploticus, and have the other required libs.  
See the Makefile for more info.  Thanks to Michael Tonkin for getting the ball rolling on this.
<a href="../gallery/stock.jpeg">Here's an example that uses a TrueType sans serif font</a>.
<br>
<br>
<li> A new script interpreter.
New <a href="scripts.html#directives">flow of control operators</a> including: 
<tt> #elseif #else #for #while #setifnotgiven #call #write #shell</tt>, etc.
Also, increased <a href="limits.html">capacities</a> for data fields and variables (250 chars)
and script input lines (3000).
The new interpreter involves some <a href="changes20.html">script syntax changes
that may cause existing scripts to break</a> in some cases.
<br>
<br>
<li>
General code clean-up and efficiency improvements
(thanks for the suggestions.. who wrote that code, anyway?!).
<br>
<br>
<li> <a href="sql.html">#sql</a>, a new directive for retrieving data directly from an SQL database.
This is currently under development,
and user-contributed client interfaces to DBMSs such as MySQL and Oracle would be welcome
(the code is in dbinterface.c)
</ul>
<font size=+1>A number of minor improvements and bug fixes are also present:</font>
<ul>
<li> Added: proc areadef <a href="autorange.html">autorange</a> - new subattributes 
<tt>selectrows</tt> (for selecting rows to be considered when
scanning for min and max) and <tt>combomode</tt> (to allow correct finding
of min and max for situations like error bars and stacked bars).
<li> Added:  proc areadef <a href="autorange.html">autorange</a> - now sets variables
DATAXMIN, DATAXMAX, DATAYMIN, and DATAYMAX - the actual minima and maxima of data field.
<li> Added: <a href="axis.html">proc axis</a> - <tt>stubevery</tt> attribute
<li> Added: <a href="getdata.html">proc getdata</a> - <tt>pathname</tt> attribute, to specify
data file name directly without involving cat(1) 
<li> Added: <a href="bars.html">proc bars</a> - <tt>colorfield</tt> attribute - set bar color based on a data field
<li> Added: <a href="legendentry.html">proc legendentry</a> - <tt>tag</tt> attribute 
<li> Added: various new <a href="functions.html">functions</a>
<li> Added: the temp file default path name and default slash character can now be changed in pl.h
or in a <a href="../doc/config.html">config file</a>.
<li> Added: resource utilization (cpu time and size of created disk files) now can be controlled.
Default upper limits are 10 cpu seconds and 5,000,000 bytes.
Limits may be altered in pl.h or by using a <a href="../doc/config.html">config file</a>
<li> Added: various other <a href="../doc/config.html">config file</a> settings
<li> Changed: proc axis - minor changes to avoid orphan date stubs and improper year placement (autoyears)
<li> Fixed bug: proc axis - when producing stubs running from negative to positive zero is displayed 
as a very tiny non-zero value such as 5.2579e-17 due to rounding error.  
<li> Fixed bug: proc getdata - buffer overflow when 'filter' is used with data records longer than 254 chars,
causing garbage result or instability.  
<li> Fixed bug: proc legend - legend entry text could not be adjusted using textdetails \fCadjust=\fR
<li> Fixed bug: proc bars - <tt>select</tt> omits bars but not labels.  Thanks to Dan Tsafrir for finding this one.
<li> Fixed bug: $arith() function - detects and issues an error on divide-by-zero.
</ul>
<br>
<br>
<h2>Ploticus is 2 years old - 25 Aug '01</h2>
<br>
<br>
<h2>Release notes for earlier versions</h2>
<ul>
<a href="Changelog.html">Click here.</a>
<br>
<br>
<li>Unless otherwise stated, versions are designed to be 
backward-compatible, meaning that a "well-behaved" script written 
for an earlier version of ploticus should work on any later version.  
Exceptions will be noted prominently in the release notes.
</ul>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<h2>Areas of ongoing development</h2>
I can proceed with Ploticus development as my "day job" allows.
Because Ploticus is now covered under GPL, which allows code to
be freely used in other GPL projects, I am posting here the
areas that I hope to get to in the near future, so that other
developers know where I am headed.
<ul>
<li>the ability to generate html image maps to accompany images
<br><br>
<li>additional prefabs.  
<br><br>
</ul>
<br>
<br>
<h2>Requested features not yet implemented</h2>
<ul>
<li>the ability to run as a persistent daemon and accept commands via named pipe
<li>lineplot - option to break line at missing data 
<li>should be able to automatically use field name headers as legend labels
<li>proc axis - when doing tics but no stubs, we need a ticrange attribute to range the tics
<li>proc getdata - fieldnames - a way to allow multiple line specification of field names.
<li>proc lineplot, etc - a way to register labels to automatically avoid collisions
<li>proc scatterplot - a way to plot with different symbols and have them all clustered
<li>new type of chart - Japanese candle charts 
<li>new type of chart - phase space plots
</ul>
<br>
<br>


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<img src="../doc/ploticus.gif" border=0></a><br><small>data display engine &nbsp; <br>
<a href="../doc/Copyright.html">Copyright Steve Grubb</a>
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