fs@uwasa.fi (Filip Sawicki LAKE) (06/04/90)
I have written a simple interactive chart program called Fchart. Here is a brief description of its features. This posting is followed by installation notes (read before you do anything!) and 4 shar files (smaller than 70KB each) in the alt.sources. Program is based upon Gnuplot code, and uses a similar language for the user interface. Four parts come directly from Gnuplot: help facility, input scanner, doc maker and terminal drivers. Maybe, if well tested and approved, program will be a part of Gnuplot in the future. Code can be freely redistributed if found useful, as long as the copyright messages are retained. PLEASE DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE MODIFIED CODE, rather e-mail me your suggestions. Gnuplot Copyright (C) 1986, 1987, 1990 Thomas Williams, Colin Kelley John Campbell, David Kotz, Russell Lang Fchart Copyright (C) 1990 Piotr Filip Sawicki --------------------------------------------- Fchart features: * Interactive user interface, batch files accepted, on-line help * Highly customizable output form (size, position, form, labels) * Four main chart styles : - normal side-by-side (adjacent) bars - stacked bars - layer-over-layer bars - pies * Many adjustable variations of styles: - pie charts with slices exploding in any direction, combining slices below specified threshold, drawing clockwise or counter- clockwise - bar charts with any value for base, drawn in any order with any gravity (left, right, top, bottom of page) - and lots more * Drawing down or across several data files (i.e. standard or transposed data) * Accepted input: - Gnuplot files - private format - columnar data files * Missing values supported * Partial input (from spec. row to spec. row); in any case, file is read at once * Internal vector font (Roman type) for better labeling and for terminals that cannot rotate text (courtesy Joe Felsenstein, joe@genetics.washington.edu) * Smart autolabeling, arrows, lines, labels (drawn in any size and/or direction). * Wide range of supported terminals (well, that's a Gnuplot feature) Faults, caveats, bugs: * Gnuplot bugs * Only 2D graphics by now (3D bars later ... perhaps) * Some errors in bar centering (almost unvisible) * Not very smart tick marking algorithm * Makefile only for *NIX systems (if some poor soul is going to write that for VMS or MS-DOS, please send it to me), though due to #ifdefs program should work everywhere. Future (in one month?): * New, highly independent and expandable graphics kernel * More fonts * Bar filling algorithm * Gnuplot patch 01 update * Anything you request --------------------------------------------- fi. (Piotr Filip Sawicki fs@uwasa.fi)