Re: PDL-Graphics-PGPLOT-Map-0.09 (fwd)

On 2006-12-13 08:56-0700 Doug Hunt wrote:

> Alan:  There is a request for a windows binary for PLplot on the PDL list.
>
> Does such a thing exist?
Hi Doug:

Short answer is not yet, but _probably_ on a time scale of a few months.
(BTW, I have replied so this is addressed not only to you but the pdl list,
but you may have to forward to it since I am not subscribed).

Here is the (somewhat) longer answer.  6 months ago we only had an autotools
build system that only worked for Unix and a rudimentary home-brewed build
system that worked in a limited way for windows.  So at that time there was
no motivation to distribute anything in binary form on windows since the
result was so limited.

Now, we do have such motivation because our new CMake build system works so
well on Unix (actually better than our old deprecated autotools build
system) and already has many more features than the old home-brewed windows
build system on windows.  In fact, it is virtually complete on windows
except for one device driver option (handling devices as plug-ins rather
than static devices) which still needs substantial work.  I am hoping that
work to complete the CMake build system for PLplot on windows will get done
early in the new year and then after that the next priority will be to try
to make a full-featured binary distribution of PLplot for windows using the
cmake facilities.  It is hard to estimate the time scale when this will
happen so a rough estimate of a few months is probably as good as we can do
at this time.

Until a binary release is available, building your own PLplot for windows is
pretty straightforward with our CMake build system so we urge windows users
who don't want to wait for a binary release to give it a try.  I would
suggest using the latest experimental release of PLplot (version 5.7.1) and
following the directions at http://www.miscdebris.net/plplot_wiki/ to build
it on windows (or any form of Unix, for that matter).

If you are having any trouble following the wiki directions, don't hesitate
to post question to the plplot-devel list
(http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=2915) or to me personally.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
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