GLE Changelog

What's new in GLE 4.2.4b

Jan 18, 2012

Bug Fixes:
Added GLU dependency to make GLE compile with Qt4.8
Fixed bug in fallback to "texcmr" when using -cairo
Fixed crash due to subroutine argument type mismatch

New in GLE 4.2.4 (Jan 5, 2012)

New in GLE 4.2.3 (Oct 1, 2011)

New in GLE 4.2.2 (Oct 1, 2011)

New in GLE 4.2.1 (Oct 1, 2011)

New in GLE 4.2.0 (Oct 1, 2011)

New features:
Added "range" and "nsteps" options to the graph block's let command.
Added functions file$() and path$() to retrieve the script's name and path (suggested by Jörg Baumgartner).
Added function isname() that tests if its argument is a named point or object.
Added "set background" to set background color of shade / grid filling patterns.
Added "background" to bar command and key block.
Added "set fillmethod", which can be "GLE" (more accurate) or "PostScript" (faster).
Source distribution now includes syntax highlighting patterns (in contrib/editors/).
Source distribution now includes the GLE manual (compile with "make doc").
Adds "ylabels log n1" to enable subticks without labels on a log scale axis (patch by Luca Donetti).
Adds option "adist" to "x/ytitle" to set the distance between the title and axis (useful for aligning axis titles of multiple graphs).
Support for multi-dimensional let (#2008719).
(See: let-multi-dim.gle.)
Support for stdin/stdout (#2009125).
E.g., cat file.gle | gle -d pdf - > file.pdf
E.g., cat file.gle | gle -o file.pdf -
Experimental support for objects with named points.
(See: transistor.gle, shapes.gle.)
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) output device (-d svg).
Engineering format "eng" for the format$ function and axis format option.
(See: axisformat.gle.)
Quantile based axis auto-scaling (by Florian Wisser).
New axis command: "roundrange on/off" to disable rounding the axis range to the next tick.
New key block mode: "compact", which combines "marker" and "line" in one column.
New key block setting: "background", which sets the background color.
Key box is now transparent (only for keys defined within the graph block).
Adds function "atan2" (#1881021).
QGLE is now available on MacOS/X (installation instructions).
"File | Edit" menu added to QGLE for easy access to files included in GLE script.
"Edit | Copy as Bitmap" menu added to copy the diagram to the clipboard.
Adds entries to QGLE's help menu to display the GLE manual and website.
GUI for detecting GLE's software dependencies (GhostScript and LaTeX).
Automatically infer device from extension of "-o" option, which specifies the output name.
DSC comments for title and creator added to PostScript/EPS/PDF output.
Includes HiResBoundingBox in PostScript output.
Better support for UTF8 accents in LaTeX expressions (use \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}).
Command line option "-noligatures" to disable the use of ligatures for "fl" and "fi".
Bug Fixes:
Fix for stack corruption in PSGLEDevice::read_psfont() (bug #2543164).
GLE now creates .inc file if -inc is given and script does not contain TeX expressions (bug #2165591).
Fix for smooth crash in case of too few data and missing values (reported by Cilliers Kruger).
Fix for 3D plot bounding box (reported by Brandon Aubie).
Fix for QGLE compilation on MacOS/X: add "-spec macx-g++" to qmake (suggested by Mol Lukas).
Fix for "xsubticks lwidth" also affecting the line width of the main ticks.
Fix for the "strip" target in Makefile.in (by Michal Vyskocil).
Auto-ranging now also works for x2axis/y2axis (#1933925).
GLE can't handle filenames with a dot (#2015073).
Fix for auto-range function with data sets with no spread (suggested by Florian Wisser).
Fix for "nox" option of "data" command of graph block.
Fixes for incorrect code points in GLE's Unicode table (o.a., for "ü").
Combining "clip" + "fill" in "begin path/end path" does not perform the requested fill.
Command line option "-noctrl-d" and some others are not documented in GLE's man page and "-help" output.
Landscape detection PS mode is now more robust.
Fixes for all warnings new in GCC 4.3.0.

New in GLE 4.1.2 (Oct 1, 2011)

New in GLE 4.1.1 (Oct 1, 2011)

New in GLE 4.1.0 (Oct 1, 2011)

New Features:
QGLE edits
GLE scripts
Auto scale + Auto key/labels
Curved arrow heads
Begin/end object blocks
Detailed Changes:
Added man page (now "man gle" should work on Linux).
Added option "-verbosity" to set the amount of console output produced by GLE.
Grid is now by default under the bars (use "grid ontop" to get the old behavior).
Added "boxcolor" command to key block to set the color of the box indicating the fill.
Added "append" and "prepend" commands to format$ strings.
Added command "abound x y" to update the current bounding box.
Added "scale auto" "hscale auto" "vscale auto" to fit the graph to the page size.
Added auto-key based on header in data set.
Added auto-xnames based on names in first data set column.
Added "let d2 = hist d1 from 0 to 10 bins 10" for computing histograms (step 1 can be used instead of bins).
Added "bar" option to "dn line" command for drawing histograms.
Data sets can now be just one column. If "nox" is given, the x-values are set to 1...N.
Added "compatibility" command (e.g., compatibility "3.5").
Added compatibility range option to include command.
Added support for standard SVG/X11 color names (by color, alphabetical).
Added HTML notation for color names (e.g., #FF0000 = red).
Added "defcolor name color".
Added "set fill xxx" and "set pattern xxx".
Made "include filename.gle" itempotent.
Added "declare sub name args", to allow forward declarations of subroutines.
Added "default" to set default values for subroutine arguments.
Output of LaTeX is now hidden, only errors are shown if they occur.
Option "dticks" now works for log scales + improved log autoscaling.
Improved Windows installer: added bitmaps and license screen (by Vincent P LaBella).
Added "mdist d" option to "dn marker" to draw a marker every d cm along the given curve.
Added "deresolve n" option to "dn line" to subsample the points before drawing (by Laurence Abbott).
Added option "average" to "dereslove" to average the points instead of just skipping them.
Added functions dataxvalue(di,i), datayvalue(di,i), ndata(di) (by Laurence Abbott).
Added options "xmin" "xmax" "ymin" "ymax" to fitting routines of "let" command.
Added "-safemode" command line option that prevents GLE scripts from accessing the file system.
Added "-allowread" and "-allowwrite" to allow I/O in given paths if "-safemode" is given.
Added "comment" option to "data" in graph block (by Vincent P LaBella).
Example: "data filename.dat d1=c1,c2 comment //" will make GLE ignore lines starting with "//" in the data file.
Better formatting of error messages if script contains long lines.
Added support for curved arrows on arcs, elliptical arcs, and bezier curves (experimental).
Added "palette" option to colormap command.
Added fitting of arbitrary functions (based on fitls code from GLE 3.x).
Example: "let d2 = fit d1 with a*sin(b*x)+c*x^2+d".
Example: "let d2 = fit d1 with a*sin(b*x)+c*x^2+d eqstr e$ rsq r".
These two examples fit dataset d1 with a function of the form "a*sin(b*x)+c*x^2+d" and put this function in d2. The second example in addition stores the resulting equation as a string in variable "e$" and the correlaction coefficient in "r". The complete example can be found here.

New in GLE 4.0.1.2 (Jul 14, 2007)

Includes a GUI called QGLE (written by A. S. Budden)
- displays the output of GLE and updates automatically after the source file is modified (run "gle -p myfile.gle")
- has basic editing tools (add amove/line/circle/...)
- QGLE is based on the QT and Ghostscript library
Added GNU autoconf support (in addition to the regular makefile.os system)
(on Linux, one can now compile with ./configure; make; make install)
Added autopackage support
UTF8 support (limited to latin characters with accents)
LaTeX expressions are scaled to the current font height
(set texscale none/fixed/scale)
LaTeX expressions are used in key and graph blocks (set texlabels 1)
The "begin box / end box" block now fills underneath its contents
Added keyword "local" to define local variables
(see e.g., Examples | Fractals | Sierpinski on the website)
Added "colormap" command (regular and graph block)
(see e.g., Examples | 3D plots | Information Gain on the website)
Colormap works for functions and for .z files
Added option "-v" to run another version of GLE
(if more than one version is installed, use "gle -help v" to list installed versions)
Added "begin object name" and "end object" to define objects
Added "draw name.pos" to draw objects
More sensible defaults for graph font sizes
(use gle -cmode 3.0 to get the old defaults)
Font size in graph now depends on the "hei" setting
Added new set subcommands: titlescale, atitlescale, ticksscale, atitledist, alabeldist
(to set font sizes and distances relative to the value of the "hei" setting)
Distance between axis labels and title are better calculated
Added "margins", "dist", "coldist" and "row" options to key block
Added "scale h v" command to graph block, which is equivalent to a hscale/vscale pair
Added colored fill patterns for the "bar" command and key block
bar d1,d2,d3,d4 fill blue,red,blue,purple pattern none,shade,grid,shade2
Added "xnames from di" to retrieve the axis labels from a data set
Added "xnoticks p1 p2 ..." to disable ticks at specified positions
Added "ftick x0" to "axis" to manually set the position of the first tick
Added "offset y0" to "axis" to move the origin of the axis
Added "angle a" to "axis" to rotate the axis labels
Added "x0axis" and "y0axis" (these are disabled by default)
Added option "center" to center a graph block
Added option "math" to create a "math mode" graph with the axis crossing at the origin
(see e.g., Examples | 2D Simple | Sin on the website)
Added option "horiz" to bar command allowing "horizontal" bar plots
Added option "style" to bar command allowing user defined bar styles
(see e.g., Examples | 2D Complex | Color Bar on the website)
Added arrow styles "filled", "empty" and "simple"
Added support for user defined arrow styles
(see e.g., Examples | Other | Arrow Styles on the website)
Added function xbar(xp,i) retrieving the x-coordinate of bar i in a bar plot
Added function xy2angle(dx,dy) that computes the angle (polar coords) given dx and dy
Added function sdiv(x,y) implementing y == 0.0 ? 0.0 : x / y
Added formatting modes "pi" and "frac" to format$
(see e.g., Examples | 2D Simple | Sin on the website)
Subroutine definitions and assignments can come before the size command
Checks for correct nesting of all block commands
While loops are now also supported (besides until ... next loops)
Support for single line then/else blocks allowing code such as
if a < 1 then print a "is smaller than 1"
else if a < 2 then print a "is smaller than 2 but larger than 1"
else if a < 3 then print a "is smaller than 3 but larger than 2"
else print a "is larger than 3"
LaTeX expressions can now also be used in combination with .ps output
Axis scales are now computed based on the datasets that are actually used
Graph block can include function calls, of which the output is clipped to the graph window
(see e.g., Examples | 2D Complex | Labeled Scatter on the website)
The manip utility has been integrated back into the GLE distribution
(see e.g., this screenshot of manip).