Re: GUI Octave

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 10 February 2011 16:49, Philip Nienhuis <address@hidden> wrote:
> Like QtOctave, it has to "connect" to Octave. Does that point to
> pipes, nJordi?

Yes, that probably means it's repeating the same old tired mistake.

> (1) After invoking graphics_toolkit ('fltk') (as first statement,
> otherwise this will be ignored and Gnuplot will still be used - a
> glitch in 3.3.91MingW)

I don't think it's a glitch; gnuplot is still the default because
we're not fully confident with fltk yet.

>  and trying some simple plots like plot (randn (10, 2)), the
> graphics window never shows up.

QtOctave has the same problem. Which is probably also related to the
"Octave connection".

> (2) It crashed Octave miserably when I tried a script producing 34
> plot figures using fltk. May be (hmmm... probably) related to (1).

No, that's probably the fltk race condition, and the biggest reason in
my opinion why fltk still can't be the default plotting engine.

> (3) It has a nice variable browser for inspecting e.g., matrices in
> a pop-up window, but it doesn't get updated when you change a value
> in the matrix in the Octave prompt.

This is another symptom of the "Octave connection".

> Similarly it cannot be used (yet?) for editing values. (I think
> Matlab's variable editor can, I'll have to try at work tomorrow).

QtOctave's can, awkwardly, as you note yourself.

> (5) The Help browser is web-based (i.e., one needs Internet access)
> but it didn't manage to properly connect "to the cloud".

Hm, probably a lazy handling of the TeXinfo sources. Just distributing
HTML versions of it is probably a GPL problem because HTML is not the
preferred form for modification. QtOctave had this problem, but we
worked it out.

> (6) The "Check for updates" option is enabled by default - typical
> for Windows software. My firewall (ZoneAlarm) catched this attempt
> during installation. Perhaps that's why the Help didn't work later
> on.

Ick, but I guess people are used to it.

> But about the license.... (many Windows users don't care about that.
> Free = gratis is all that counts)

Maybe they'll care if they come asking for help in the Octave mailing
list and tell them there's absolutely nothing we can do without
source.

> BTW would it be good to cross-post this to help-octave? I don't know
> how to do this using Nabble....

I don't directly use Nabble's interface... you can just send this
email to the help list.

- Jordi G. H.