From octave-graphics-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Mon Oct 28 14:02:18 1996
Subject: Graphics and GUI tools for Octave
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: octave-graphics at tillamook-sharp dot eaton dot net
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 14:02:06 -0600

I've created a mailing list for discussing the future of graphics and
GUI tools in Octave.  It's octave-graphics at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu and the
current list members are

  Vinayak Dutt <dutt dot vinayak at mayo dot edu>
  John W. Eaton <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
  Ted dot Harding at nessie dot mcc dot ac dot uk (Ted Harding)
  Carl Leitner <bigcarl at email dot unc dot edu>

Perhaps creating another mailing list is not a good idea since I am
already having trouble keeping up with my email, but I don't know of
any better way to get things started.  If you'd rather not to be on
yet another mailing list, let me know and I'll remove your name.

I only created one list to cover both topics instead of one for
graphics and one for GUI tools because I see them as related problems
and the solution to both will probably be similar.  The reason I say
this is that there are lots of graphics packages and GUI toolkits out
there, and Octave should not be tied to any one in particular.

I think this problem can be solved by using techniques similar to the
one now used to allow loading of user-defined types.  That is, we
define some generic base class to describe a common interface to
graphics/GUI objects that is used internally by Octave.  Then users
can add interfaces to whatever graphics and GUI tools they want by
defining a C++ class interface derived from the generic class
interface.  The only real problem that I see right now is deciding how
the generic interfaces should look and work.

Comments, suggestions, discussions welcome.  Please send them to the
list.

Thanks,

jwe