From graphics-request at octave dot org Sat Feb 25 01:21:58 2006
Subject: Re: Handle Graphics Properties v0.1
From: "Shai Ayal" <shaiay at gmail dot com>
To: "Bill Denney" <denney at seas dot upenn dot edu>
Cc: graphics at octave dot org
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 09:20:16 +0200

Bill,

Thanks for the effort. I have a few major comments:

1. Legends: I find legend functionality lacking in matlab. IMHO the
legend is a major part of the plot, not something to be added
afterwards -- in this respect gnuplot has it right. I implemented this
by adding the line.label property. This allows for label definitions
in the plot command linespec ( e.g. plot(x,y,"r+;line;") ) which I
find very useful. Since this is not on matlab I think it should be
discussed further.

2. Movie & Legend objects do not exist in matlab. Legend is
implemented in octplot as a design decision by me -- it is in fact a
"compound" object consisting of a patch + lines + text. Movie -- I
have no idea where  this came from. As I understand this is
effectively a container for frames, frames being actually figures? So
Movie is a collection of figures with some formatting info?

3. Handle numbering convention: is the [figure].[object] convention
really a requirement? does anyone actually look at the values of
handles? I always think of the as pointers -- I don't care about their
value as long as they point to something useful.

Shai

p.s. sadly I commute by driving myself, so I cannot do much actual
work these days ...



On 2/25/06, Bill Denney <denney at seas dot upenn dot edu> wrote:
> So, I've codified the handle graphics properties that I think we need.
>
> http://denney.homeip.net/octave/properties.html
>
> This is definitely a work in progress.  I've borrowed liberally from
> Shai's props package (as suggested, though I have made changes where I
> thought that they were needed).  I've not really looked anywhere else yet,
> but this is what I think should be supported by most (if not all) graphics
> back ends.
>
> I wrote this on the train while commuting during the past couple of days,
> and I plan to put it on the wiki soon (someone else can if they have
> time-- I won't have time for several days I don't think), but please start
> reading it, thinking about it, and discussing it.
>
> As said, this is a work in progress, and I'd like to hear other opinions
> on what should be there, and how it should work.  There are some things
> that I agree and some that I disagree with Shai on (some are already
> changed, and some definitely need discussion).
>
> The first thing that I'd like to discuss is:
>
> Do we need separate patch and surface types, or can we just generalize the
> patch as a surface in the z=0 plane and remove the patch type (note that
> this doesn't mean removing the patch command)?
>
> Bill
>
> --
> "I think animal testing is a terrible idea. They get all nervous and give
> the wrong answers."
>    -- A Bit of Fry & Laurie, British TV Series
>
>