Re: A brief Guppi update

[Jon Trowbridge <trow emccta com>]

On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 03:01:17PM +0100, Neil J Pilgrim wrote:
> Jon Trowbridge wrote on 26 May:
> [that 0.34.5 would come out soon, a pre-printing release]
> 
> I've had a look at the changelog, and printing seems to be coming along
> :)
> So when can we expect the next release ?
> <on edge of seat>

Yeah, I've had a total collapse of discipline when it comes to
releases... I just can't stop myself from coding! :-) The good news is
that (IMHO) the next release will be pretty nice... things have
progressed to the point where I'm trying to make a fairly polished
"major released" that I'll announce with a bit more PR than
usual. (i.e. gnome-announce rather than just guppi-list)

The next release will be 0.35.1.  I've bumped the version number,
because so much has changed.

This version will feature.

* WYSIWYG printing via gnome-print.  Wheee!

* New plot plug-ins: pie charts and line graphs.

* Scatter plot improvements & optimizations, including better color
  gradients.

* A much more powerful constraint-based layout system for plots.

* Support for embedding guppi's plotting libs in your own apps,
  including automake macros, a libguppiConf.sh file, etc.

* Improved scripting: the ability to run scripts in a totally
  non-interactive "batch mode", w/o an X server.  (For example, to
  construct a plot and then dump a postscript version into a file.)

* (Maybe, if it is ready in time) Python bindings for scripting,
  parallel to the guile bindings.  Andrew Chatham is working on this,
  and making good progress.

* More and better translations.  (Thanks to the translators!)

* Lots of optimizations, bug fixes, and internal clean-up and
  rationalization.  But nobody cares about that stuff but me... 

* Other cool stuff that I'm forgetting now.

All of the above is about 98% done.  Now I just need a few days to
polish things up, and then I'll make a release.  Promise.  Really.  I
mean it this time. :-)

BTW, the stuff in CVS should build and run just fine.  If anyone wants
a preview:

(1) check-out & build the latest version

(2) cd src/guppi

(3) run

    % ./guppi --script hacked-scatter-demo.scm

    (The dialog describing the mouse-button bindings is totally
    out-of-date.  Experiment...)
    and

    % ./guppi --script hacked-pie-demo.scm

    (try using mouse-1, shift-mouse-1 and mouse-2)


Meanwhile, watch this space...

-JT

-- 
GNU/Linux: Free your mind and your OS will follow.