Re: Choosing graphics backend for documentation

[Ben Abbott]

> On Aug 17, 2015, at 3:22 AM, Michael Godfrey <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> On 08/17/2015 01:52 AM, Ben Abbott wrote:
>>> On Aug 16, 2015, at 8:19 PM, Michael Godfrey<address@hidden>  wrote:
>>> >
>>> >On 08/16/2015 10:59 PM, Daniel J Sebald wrote:
>>>> >>What figures can't be drawn?
>>>> >>
>>>> >>Dan
>>> >Besides Fig. 15-7, the Plotting section will need extensive rewrite to
>>> >document a system with gnuplot only.
>> I don’t think the documentation should change if only gnuplot is present … 
>> is that what you meant?
>> 
>> For me, the question is whether or not the documentation can be generated 
>> only using gnuplot.
>> 
>> Ben
> 
> It appears that I do not understand what is being proposed here. If the 
> indent is to
> provide users of Octave with a version which only supports gnuplot for 
> plotting then
> the current manual is not appropriate for them. There has always been an 
> issue due
> to the fact that there has only been one version of the manual, but Octave 
> can be
> built with or without various features.  But, the maintenance of a single 
> Octave
> overrides this.  Note that if OpenGL is not available the gui will not be 
> either.
> 
> This gnuplot only system seems to be needed only in the case where users are 
> building Octave
> from source. Most users will install a packaged Octave. If they want a Manual 
> they
> have to obtain it from the Octave site.  The reason for including the Manual 
> source
> files is for developers use. So, it appears that the only use for this option 
> is for
> developers use on systems which lack any working OpenGL.  Most developers will
> need to have a system which is capable of generating a fully functional 
> Octave for
> testing. This requires OpenGL.
> 
> If this effort is intended to provide users a new version of Octave which 
> does not depend on
> OpenGL than this should be made explicit and agreed on through the developers 
> list.

No, that’s not it. What is desired (at least for me) is that the documentation 
can be built in the absence of osmesa, and/or working OpenGL toolkits.

I think this requires three fixes.

(1) Switching to gnuplot (or making the figures visible?) when an OpenGL is 
available, but osmesa is not. 
(2) Switching to gnuplot when OpenGL toolkits are not available.
(3) Support of pdflatexstandalone for the gnuplot toolkit.

Ben