From octave-maintainers-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Tue Feb 10 18:55:36 1998
Subject: Re: No subject given
From: "Robert S. Maier" <rsm at math dot arizona dot edu>
To: jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
CC: phopfgartner at memc dot inet dot it, octave-maintainers@bevo.che.wisc.edu
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 00:54:24 GMT

>It sounds like it requires an X server on the NT/95 system.  If so,
>I don't think that's really the best solution.  Can anyone out there
>provide an estimate for how difficult it might be to use the native
>NT/95 graphics capabilities to avoid requiring an X server?

John, I think I can answer part of that. 

If you look at the code for libplot, you'll see that it's very modular.
Adding a new display device would be pretty easy: if it draws graphics in a
window, the only graphics routines it definitely needs are those that draw
lines and polygons, and set attributes such as line width and line type.
Rendering fonts isn't necessary, since vector (Hershey) fonts can be used.

Of course if the windowing system is event-driven (i.e. uses callbacks)
then some ingenuity may be needed.  Right now my X driver forks off a copy
of itself for every window it drives.  A better solution of course would be
to use a single outboard process, the way gnuplot does.  I'll switch to
doing it that way within the next release or two.  Not being an NT/95 man,
I won't speculate on what the analogous way to do it in Windows would be.

--Robert