For a color requester I just use the palette program that comes with the
WorkBench 1.3 enhancer package. PLPLOT looks for this program in TOOLS:
and if it's not there it looks in sys:tools, so you'll program want
to "assign" tools: to the directory in which the palette program resides.
PLPLOT looks for the fonts in PLFONTS: so make sure it is "assign"ed
too (put it in your startup sequence).
About the Amiga drivers:
******
IFF and Preferences
Tom Rokicki (thanks!) provided the code for the iff and preferences
drivers.
The IFF driver will prompt for resolution, page size,
filename and orientation unless plsetup() and plselect() are used.
The preferences driver creates a black and white graph on your
preferences supported printer. It uses the preferences selected
density and page size limits and ignores most of the other stuff.
If you have selected "ignore" in the page size limit options
(see the 1.3 Enhancer manual) then a full page graph is produced.
The other options operate as described in the Enhancer manual.
Only "ignore" and "bounded" produce aspect ratio correct plots
(usually unimportant unless x and y must have the same scaling
like for pie charts or polar plots). You can get very high quality
plots with this driver. A full page, high resolution plot
requires a lot of memory though (An 8"x10" 300 dpi plot requires
(8*300)*(10*300)/8 = 900000 bytes). You can use the page limits
to reduce the memory requirements and still get high quality
output.
******
postscript
The postscript driver was written by Sam Paolucci (thanks!) for
the previous version. I don't have a ps printer and so was unable
to upgrade the driver to be completely compatible with this
version. (I didn't know how to set the pen width.)
(Feb. 20, 1990: I've been told this works. Still haven't been told
how to set the pen width.)
******
Aegis Draw
I created this one because I have Draw2000 and it was easy to do.
I don't know how popular it is. It does provide a very nice
method for touching up graphs.
******
HP Plotter (or PLT: device)
The plt: device is an HP plotter compatible device handler written by
Jim Miller and Rich Champeaux. It is freely redistributable, but
it is not included with this package (it's big enough already!).
It gives high quality output like the preferences driver but with
full preferences support. Usually requires less memory (for full
page plots) than the preferences driver, but is slower. Highly
recommended if you have a color printer or are memory strapped.
I don't know exactly which model HP plotter this is compatible
with (the HP7470 I think).
*******
Amiga window
I've completely redone this driver. I hope you agree that it is much
nicer. A normal window with standard intuition gadgets is now used.
You can resize the window even while the program is plotting in the
window (see the "Redraw Enabled" section below). If you are making
several graphs on separate pages, use the close gadget to advance
from one "page" to the next.
"Plplot" menu selections:
"Save Configuration"
- Saves current window configuration (window size, screen type,
screen depth, colors, resolution, etc.). The configuration
is saved in s:Plplot.def (only 54 bytes).
"Reset"
- Resets the window to the configuration in s:Plplot.def
(or to a default config if this file doesn't exist).
"Maintain Plot Aspect"
- If this is checked the plot aspect ratio is maintained as the
window is resized (handy for polar plots, etc.). Default
is unchecked in which case x and y are stretched
independently to fit in the window.
"Redraw Enabled"
- If this is checked, then the graphics commands are buffered
in t:plplot.dat. This file is used to redraw the plot when
required. It's status is checked only when a new graph is
started. The buffer is also used to create the "Full Page"
prints under the "Print" selection.
"Select Screen Type"
- A submenu allows the user to select either "Workbench" or
"Custom".
"Print"
- There are three submenu options here. The "Bitmap Dump"
does just that (with full preferences support). The
output is pretty jagged, but you can play around with
the preferences stuff (scaling, smoothing, etc.) to
improve things. The other two submenus are
"Full Page (Landscape)" and "Full Page (Portrait)". This
uses the graphics buffer file (see "Redraw Enabled" above)
to create graphics output similar to the preferences
driver. However the aspect ratio can not be maintained.
Same preferences options are used as in preferences driver.
"Save Bitmap as IFF File"
- Self explanatory. You can use this to save your images and
then touch them up (do area fills, etc.) with your favorite
paint program.
"Screen Format" selections: (This menu only appears on the custom screen)
"Interlaced"
"High Resolution"
"Number of Colors"
"Set Color Palette"
- I think these are all self-explanatory. You can select either
2, 4, 8, or 16 colors.
Tony Richardson
EMAIL amr@dukee.egr.duke.edu (Internet address)
USMAIL Tony Richardson Tony Richardson
Dept of Elect Eng 311 S. LaSalle St. #41B
Duke University Durham, NC 27705
Durham, NC 27706
ph 919-660-5262 ph 919-286-7101
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.