GNUPLOT VERSION 4.6 =================================== We are happy to announce the release of gnuplot version 4.6. This version will be a major release with significant new capabilities and enhancements compared to the current version 4.4. Particularly noteworthy features include: - New syntax supporting multi-line blocks of code delimited by curly braces if () { ... } else { ... } do for [] { ... } while () { ... } - Time formats can handle fractional seconds to microsecond precision. - User-definable linetypes that can be used to establish a locally preferred default sequence of colors or dash/thickness/point styles. - Statistical summary of the data to be plotted (new command "stats") - New terminal drivers: qt context epscairo cairolatex - The version for Windows received major improvements (GUI, help, native terminal and wxt) - Improved support for UTF-8, SJIS and other multi-byte encodings The NEWS file contains a longer list of changes since the previous release. Full information is given in the ChangeLog. NOTES TO PACKAGERS AND TESTERS =============================== Configuration options for interactive use ----------------------------------------- The 4.6 source code supports three primary cross-platform output modes in addition to several platform-specific modes. 1) Cairo/pango/wxWidgets These terminals were introduced in version 4.4 and are now the most stable and full-featured option. This set of terminals includes - pngcairo, pdfcairo, epscairo, and cairolatex for output to a file - wxt for interactive display This is the default configuration, but requires installation of libcairo, libpango, libcairo, libwxgtk, and related support libraries To disable these terminals: ./configure --disable-wxt --without-cairo 2) Qt The new qt terminal supports interactive display, with menu-driven output to png, svg or pdf. Requires libqt version >= 4.5 ./configure --enable-qt 3) X11 (the "classic" interactive interface) This used to be the preferred interactive interface, but the newer wxt and qt terminals offer nicer output and a wider range of features. Options for output to files --------------------------- Of course the terminals (output modes) present in previous gnuplot versions are also still available. These include, among many more obscure options: - png/jpeg/gif output via libgd - PostScript - Many flavors of TeX/LaTeX output, including TikZ and ConTeXt (new) - Bitmapped output to support many older devices (e.g. HP deskjet, epson, seiko printers, pbm bitmapped graphics files) is available if needed but is no longer configured in by default. Note that the bitmap code copyright is more restrictive than the rest of the gnuplot code. ./configure --with-bitmap-terminals Options for generating interactive plots for web display -------------------------------------------------------- - Mouseable output for display on the web can be created using either the canvas terminal (HTML5 2D canvas element) or the svg terminal. Both allow zooming, toggling plot elements on/off, and user-scriptable hot keys. Online demo plots ----------------- Demo plots illustrating new and old features are online at http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo_cvs/ OTHER NOTES =============================== Installation ------------ You can download a source tarball for gnuplot version 4.6.0 from the gnuplot development site on SourceForge. http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2055 Installation instructions are available in the source itself; the short version for linux/unix-like systems is to unpack the tarball and then build it: cd gnuplot-4.6.0 ; ./configure ; make test it: make check install it: make install Pay careful attention to the output of the ./configure script. It may indicate that some output drivers have been omitted because the necessary support libraries were not found. In general you need to have previously installed the "*-devel-*" versions of these libraries. Known issues ------------ - Mac OSX ships with a terminal input library that appears to be GNU libreadline, but isn't really. The program tries to cope with this, but you may get better results by configuring gnuplot to use either its own built-in readline routines or the real GNU libreadline. - The gnuplot build system is not very good at figuring out where to find or install LaTeX-related files. This can affect use of the new lua/tikz and ConTeXt terminals. - Alpha-channel support in aquaterm requires aquaterm version 1.0.1 or newer, available from http://aquaterm.sourceforge.net. Aquaterm does not support mousing. Autoconfiguration of aquaterm support is still a work in progress. If you can help, please do! - You can configure support for both wxt and qt into the same gnuplot executable, but only one of these two output modes can be used in any given gnuplot session. Support ------- Please report all bugs and installation problems to the bug tracker on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=2055&atid=102055 There is also an gnuplot discussion forum on usenet group comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot Development ----------- Gnuplot development is quite active. The development branch on SourceForge contains preliminary implementations of many new features. Following the release of gnuplot 4.6, the development branch will be identified as version 4.7. Feedback and contributions of code are very welcome. .