.ig >>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
        A:link{text-decoration:none}
        A:visited{text-decoration:none}
        A:active{text-decoration:none}
        OL,UL,P,BODY,TD,TR,TH,FORM { font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;; font-size:small; color: #333333; }

        H1 { font-size: x-large; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; }
        H2 { font-size: large; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; }
        H3 { font-size: medium; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; }
        H4 { font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; }
-->
</STYLE>
<title>ploticus: what's new</title>
<body bgcolor=D0D0EE vlink=0000FF>
<br>
<br>
<center>
<table cellpadding=2 bgcolor=FFFFFF width=550><tr>
<td>
  <table cellpadding=2 width=550><tr>
  <td><br><h2>What's new</h2></td>
  <td align=right>
  <small>
  <a href="../doc/welcome.html"><img src="../doc/ploticus.gif" border=0></a><br>
  Version 2.30
  <td></tr></table>
</td></tr>
<td>
<br>
<br>
.>>

.TH What's_new PL "26-AUG-2004   PL ploticus.sourceforge.net"

.ig >>

<li> <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ploticus">Ploticus news / discussion group</a>
<li> <a href="http://ploticus.sourceforge.net">ploticus.sourceforge.net</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<h2><li> Version 2.30 - Aug '04 &nbsp; <a href="version230.html">summary</a>
<br> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Download it <a href="http://ploticus.sourceforge.net/doc/download.html">here</a>
</h2>
<br>
<br>
<h2><li> <a href="news_old.html">Version 2.21 and earlier - summaries</a></h2>
<br>
<br>
<a name=breakers></a>
<h2>Cumulative summary of changes that might affect existing/old applications</h2>
Unless otherwise stated, ploticus 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.  However there are several exceptions:
<ul>
<li> <b>version 2.30</b> - with -csmap (client-side image maps PNG/GIF/JPEG) the default is now for map 
content to be written to <tt>stdout</tt> since this seems to be what is usually wanted.  
Previously the default had been for it to be written to a file.  
Server-side image maps (<tt>-map</tt>) and SVG are not affected by this change.
<br><br>
<li> <b>version 2.30</b> - <a href="prefab_news.html">prefabs - a few changes that might minimally affect existing applications</a>
 - see "Caution:"
<br><br>

<li> <b>version 2.10</b> (probably) - the <a href="processdata.html">proc processdata</a> <tt>breaks</tt> action requires
an invocation of <a href="usedata.html">proc usedata</a> to get back to the original data
set.  This is now explained correctly in the docs.

<br><br>
<li> sometime after version 1.39, time values greater than 24:00:00 began to be regarded as
invalid (they're invalid for clock times but not for elapsed times).  This has been fixed in 2.20
but requires a format such as <tt>hhh:mm:ss</tt> to be specified when working with elapsed times (<tt>hhh</tt>
indicates elapsed time, no upper limit).  
<br><br>
<li> <b>version 2.10</b> - several obscure changes: 
config file parameters <tt>sid</tt>, <tt>gid</tt>, and <tt>filesizelimit</tt> dropped;
number display format settings dropped from proc page;
proc areadef <tt>catcompmethod: fuzzy</tt> no longer supported;
proc processdata <tt>stack</tt> is now <tt>no</tt> by default, which might be an issue in scripts that use 
<tt>originaldata</tt> to access processdata result data set;
<br><br>
<li> <b>version 2.03</b> - pltab no longer supported.  However, it is still available from
<a href="http://ploticus.sourceforge.net/steve.html">here</a>.
<br>
<br>
<li> <b>version 2.03</b> - proc rect (old name proc bevelrect) - bevelsize must now be specified
in order to get a bevelled rectangle.
<br>
<br>
<li> <b>version 2.02</b> - lines prefab - changed the way that the <tt> fill </tt> parameter works.  
Previously it had applied to all curves and line color was used.  Now it is specified
as a color, and separately for each curve (using fill2, fill3, and fill4).  This will 
break any existing applications that use the lines prefab to render multiple filled curves.
<br>
<br>
<li> <b>version 2.00</b> - New script interpreter resulted in some script syntax changes.
Concatenation of variables is done differently in <b>#set</b> and <b>#if</b> statements,
<b>#setifnotgiven</b> replaces <b>#declare soft</b>, and some other minor issues.
<a href="changes20.html">Here are the details.</a> 
</ul>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<a name=requests></a>
<br>
<h2>Requested features list</h2>
These items have been mentioned in correspondence (or in some cases dreamed up by myself) 
but are not currently on the "front burner".  It's likely that many of these will
be addressed eventually but probably not in the immediate future.  If you have interest
in taking any of these on, let me know (scg@jax.org) and I will be happy to facilitate.

<ul>
<li> additional prefabs 

<li> star plots (<a href="http://ploticus.sourceforge.net/download/stargraph.jpg">example</a>)

<li> legends in tabular or multi-column format

<li> a way to define holidays in config file (similar to omitweekends)

<li> facilities to make QQ plots easier

<li> the ability to run as a persistent daemon and accept commands via named pipe

<li> a method for automatic annotation placement, including avoidance of annotation, label, and plot object collisions.

<li> more 3-D plots and effects

<li> XML script syntax option - the plotting procs fit the xml model easily enough
but not sure what to do about flow of control operators such as #if or #for .. #endloop.

<li> a mechanism similar to catslide that would allow similar minor adjustment of scaled data placement
for any type of axis, not just categories.

<li> you should be able to say: stubs inc   for date, time, or datetime and get a reasonable
default stub increment.  Associated with this would be similar functionality for autorange.

<li> alternative to 0am for displaying "midnight"

<li> proc pie option to produce ring graphs

</ul>
<br>
<br>


.>>

.ig >>
<br>
<br>
</td></tr>
<td align=right>
<a href="../doc/welcome.html">
<img src="../doc/ploticus.gif" border=0></a><br><small>data display engine &nbsp; <br>
<a href="../doc/Copyright.html">Copyright Steve Grubb</a>
<br>
<br>
<center>
<img src="../gallery/all.gif"> 
</center>
</td></tr>
</table>
.>>
