GNUPLOT - The Final Frontier ============================ This is the release official announcement for gnuplot 3.7.3. G N U P L O T Version 3.7 patchlevel 3 last modified Thu Dec 12 13:00:00 GMT 2002 Most, if not all, known bugs in gnuplot 3.7.2 have been fixed. See below for a list of changes. A note about gnuplot 3.7.2: we never officially announced 3.7.2. It was a rush job to make the deadline for Debian 3.0. For copyright reasons, this release had all code related to the gamma, inverse normal, and inverse error function removed. It did not work properly on Windows, either. This will most likely be the final release in the gnuplot 3.7 series, apart from another one or two possible bugfix releases. The developers are now concentrating their efforts on the next major release, gnuplot 4.0, which we hope to release during the first half of next year. THE FAQ ======= An updated version of the gnuplot FAQ is now available. It can be found at the following locations: http://www.ucc.ie/gnuplot/faq.html ftp://ftp.ucc.ie/pub/gnuplot/faq/faq.txt All main distribution sites in the faq/ subdirectory. The FAQ is not being maintained at the moment. Volunteers are encouraged to contact the gnuplot developers at info-gnuplot-beta -at- dartmouth.edu. GNUPLOT AND GIF IMAGES ====================== An important note to all who wish to create GIF images with gnuplot: * Gnuplot requires the gd library from http://www.boutell.com/gd/ to * * create gif output. Note that the use of this code may subject your * * organisation to a charge of willful patent infringement (as stated * * by UNISYS) unless you are in possession of a UNISYS license. * * * * The UNISYS patent covers the LZW technology which is used to create * * gifs. To our knowledge, only gd library version 1.3 and 1.4 are free * * of LZW code and should therefore be used with gnuplot (unless you have * * a license from Unisys to use LZW code, in which case version 1.2 and 1.5 * * is fine, too). The binaries provided here have been built with version * * 1.3. Version 1.6+ cannot be used because support for GIF has been * * removed altogether. * As all gif-creating versions of gd library seem to have been taken off www.boutell.com, we are providing gd library versions 1.3 and 1.4 at the gnuplot distribution sites [1]. Should any legal problems arise, we will remove this software. The PNG image format is an alternative to gif. See [2]. DISTRIBUTION ============ By the time you receive this, copies of gnuplot-3.7.3.tar.gz should be at the official repositories. Binary versions for various non-Unix platforms will be made available in the same places. Please allow a couple of days for these distributions to appear. A diffs file relative to gnuplot-3.7.2 is also available. To apply the patch, use the following procedure: $ gunzip gnuplot-3.7.2.tar.gz $ gunzip gnuplot-3.7.2-3.7.3.diff.gz $ cd gnuplot-3.7.2 $ patch -p1 <../gnuplot-3.7.2-3.7.3.diff All distribution archives are signed with a public key which is available from public key servers. For more information, see the README and PGPKEYS file at the distribution sites. DISTRIBUTION SITES ================== NORTH AMERICA Anonymous ftp to ftp.gnuplot.info: ftp://ftp.gnuplot.info/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-3.7.3.tar.gz Alternatively, you can use your web browser to get gnuplot from the gnuplot web pages at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuplot/ AUSTRALIA: From the AARNet Mirror Project: ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gnuplot/ http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gnuplot/ This site is not accessible outside Australia/New Zealand. Anonymous ftp to ftp.cc.monash.edu.au: ftp://ftp.cc.monash.edu.au/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-3.7.3.tar.gz EUROPE: Anonymous ftp to ftp.irisa.fr: ftp://ftp.irisa.fr/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-3.7.3.tar.gz Anonymous ftp to ftp.ucc.ie: ftp://ftp.ucc.ie/pub/gnuplot/gnuplot-3.7.3.tar.gz OTHER: Source and binary distributions for the Amiga will be available on Aminet http://ftp.wustl.edu/~aminet/ and its mirrors as gfx/misc/gnuplot-3.7.3bin.lha gfx/misc/gnuplot-3.7.3doc.lha gfx/misc/gnuplot-3.7.3src.lha Macintosh binaries will presumably be available from http://homepage.mac.com/gnuplot/ at some stage. CHANGELOG ========= o Major: contributed code to re-add gamma, inverse normal, and inverse error function, thanks to Dietmar Warning o Windows specific fixes, most visibly changing the 'pause' command to avoid cpu hogging, and updated build procedures o Improved metapost driver o Make Linux driver work with devfs, thanks to Don Taber o Numerous bugfixes backported from development version, see ChangeLog o A large number of documentation misprints have been fixed, thanks to Shigeharu TAKENO As most users are probably still using gnuplot-3.7.1, the changelog for 3.7.2 is included here for reference: o Major: we have removed code that was labeled with a non-commercial use clause. The effect is that this removes the gamma, inverse normal, and inverse error function from platforms that have no native implementation. o Support for BeOS o timefmt can read Unix 'seconds since the epoch' type input. o New terminal drivers: emf (Enhanced Metafile Format), epslatex, ggi (General Graphics Interface), pdf, svg (W3C Scalable Vector Graphics) o Updated png driver: web-friendly palette, transparent images, explicit colour specification o Updated HPGL driver: optional multi-pen support, alternative plot sizes, variable font sizes o Updated gnugraph driver: now requires GNU plotutils 2.2 or better o Updated eepic driver: picture environment now scales with "set size" o Updated fig driver to fig file format 3.2 o Updated tkcanvas driver o Fix font size option in pslatex driver o configure-alike script for VMS o Command substitution in double-quoted strings o Vector clipping style for 2D plots o Sort terminals by name before displaying o Numerous bugfixes THE CONTRIB SECTION =================== An improved gnuplot mode for X/Emacs by Bruce Ravel is available from http://feff.phys.washington.edu/~ravel/software/gnuplot-mode/Welcome.html. It has already been added to the development version of gnuplot. CREDITS ======= The gnuplot team would like to thank all who have contributed to this release through discussions, suggestions, bug reports, and patches, on Usenet and mailing lists. Special thanks go to Juergen von Hagen who maintained the gnuplot FAQ until earlier this this. To Dick Crawford for his untiring and competent presence on comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot. To Hans-Bernhard Broeker for his general contribution. -Thomas Williams- -Lars Hecking- FOOTNOTES ========= [1] The gif terminal driver requires third party software. Because the version of gd library currently at http://www.boutell.com/gd/ does NOT create gif images, we are providing gd library version 1.3 and 1.4 at from the gnuplot distribution sites. [2] the png terminal driver requires third party software. The png graphics library and zlib can be downloaded from http://www.cdrom.com/pub/png/pngcode.html and http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/zlib/ respectively. They are also available from the gnuplot distribution sites.