hp2xx-3.4.1 (HPGL converter)

[mk]

hp2xx-3.4.1,

a new release of the HP-GL converter originally written by Heinz Werntges,
in now available from ftp.gnu.org and its usual mirror sites.

Besides several bugfixes, this release adds support for the BZ/BR commands
(bezier curve plotting) and plotter fonts for European Languages, greek 
characters and mathematical symbols.
The automatic A4 margin generation introduced by the original author in 3.2.0 
have been removed, so positioning and clipping should hopefully work as 
expected again. NULL characters in labels are now ignored as they should be, 
an overlooked debug message in the pcx driver has been silenced, and build 
fixes for the OS/2 and Windows platforms have been added. This release also
introduces new output modules for direct generation of PDF,SVG and DXF files.
The preview mode for X11 has been enhanced with simple zoom and pan options,
and a previewer for MS windows platforms has been added.
I would greatly appreciate receiving bug reports, patches or even sample 
HPGL files. (In the latter case, please make sure that no copyright or 
confidentiality agreements are violated before sending any materials.)

Martin Kroeker, 
address@hidden OR address@hidden

Disclaimer: while i currently work for Daveg GmbH and they have generously 
            waived their rights (as per German employment laws) on the code 
            i wrote for hp2xx, this software is totally unrelated to, and 
            not endorsed by, Daveg GmbH. 
See the file 'copying' (i.e. the GNU GPL) for license and warranty
information.

Changes from 3.4.0 to 3.4.1

- Scale penwidths in raster modes to resolve the metric/pixelcount
  controversy in interpretation of the pen widths. (Gerhard Buergmann)
- Added support for BR and BZ (cubic bezier curves)
- Added Makefile template for Microsoft platforms, explicitly set binary
  i/o mode on the standard in/out channels on these systems (Bruce Lightner)
- Added support for character sets 9 (ISO reference) and 30-39 (western 
  european languages).
- Added Ventura Math and PS Math fonts and partial support for the AD and 
  SD commands (font selection, but no font properties yet)
- X11 preview can be terminated by pressing any key on the preview window
  now (Yury Strelenko). The preview window is limited to the available screen
  size again, but if the drawing is larger than the screen, one can
  now pan about the window using the mouse. The preview image can be zoomed
  to twice the original resolution using mouse button 2. 
- Added test case spectrum.plt, donated by Yuri Strelenko, to hp-tests
- Added PDF output mode (requires libpdf)
- Added simple DXF output.
- Added output mode for XML/SVG.
- Improved Epson Esc/P2 output mode, now known to work with the Stylus 1520.
- Added description and templates for building on MS Windows using VisualC++
  and added output as Windows Enhanced Metafile (EMF) with printing and 
  preview support for this platform (Bengt-Arne Fjellner)
- Added Makefile section for IRIX and fixed some compiler warnings (Yves
  Nodet)  

Bug fixes:
 
- Removed extraneous progress message in PCX output (leftover from debugging,
  pointed out by Francisco Filho)
- Removed the intensity plane from PCX output, as it is not needed anymore
  and appears to confuses some software.
- backspacing degree sign in charset 2 looked more like a tiny A
- NULL characters in labels were not ignored, causing incomplete labels
- the default 'hardware limits' introduced by the original author in
  3.2.0 (A4 with margins) were messing up the scaling and clipping.
  (Joe Green). This version defaults to A0 (1188x840mm) hardware limits.
- made OS/2 version compile again, updated makefile template for OS/2
  (Kazutaka Nishiyama) 
- reduced 'penwidth correction' in eps output (Yuri Strelenko)
- the effects of a previous RO or WU commands were not undone by the next
  IN command (Yuri Strelenko)
- The provided Unix manual page was outdated in several areas
- A pencolor (PC) command for pen 0 would cause hp2xx to abort with a spurious
  error message(Tyler Mitchell)
- Added x and y dpi to the TIFF header to placate certain viewers and plotters
  (Glen Barr)
- Dots in line definitions were drawn as very short lines (Andrew Bird)
- the optional parameters of a BP statement were interpreted as regular
  HPGL commands (causing strange error messages when there was a filename with 
  HPGL-like character sequence among them)
- reverted a change in the scaling mechanism for PS/IW. Geometry surrounded
  by whitespace should be positioned correctly again.  
- The trailing semicolon is now suppressed when reporting inline COmments.
- The Postscript BeginProcSet command lacked a colon (Bengt-Arne Fjellner).


-- 
Dr. Martin Kroeker, daveg GmbH Darmstadt  CAD/CAM/CAQ  address@hidden
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