Grace: List of changes

# Grace list of changes (since 5.1.*)

##

###

###

###

###

###

###

###

###

    5.99.0

    KNOWN ISSUES

    Grace-5.99.0 is a preview release of the forthcoming Grace-6. What does
    "preview" mean?

    * First, the new format of project files, xgr, has not yet stabilized. In other
    words, anything you save with 5.99.0 most probably will not load in the
    further 5.99.* and in the final 6.0 release without manual tweaking of some
    extent.

    * Another big deficiency of this release is that the old command interpreter
    has been removed, with no replacement on the horizon as of yet. In other words,
    any script-based usage of Grace is impossible now.

    Other, smaller issues:

    * Non-linear fit is not there (this is a consequence of the above)
    * Region interface isn't finished
    * Rotated arcs are not functional
    * Stacked line plots with filled interior may have symbols shadowed
    * Part of the "Point explorer" tool functionality isn't available yet

    Functionality
     !  [ES] all elements of a project now form a true tree structure with
             rendering following the order. This solved a lot of requests
             (including reps. #226, #806, #894, #960, #1005, #1177, #1229, #1255)
     !  [ES] each element has a string id which can be set to a meaningful value
             (hence solving rep. #1367, #1384)
     *  [ES] all transformation dialogs: act on all data columns (including #659),
             provide destination selectors (rep. #837), use new set selectors
             everywhere (reps. #885, #1195)
     !  [ES] Fourier transforms fully reworked (including reps. #554, #630,
             #684, #1216, #1391)
     !  [ES] feature extraction reworked (including rep. #1130)
     !  [ES] diff/derivatives reworked (including rep. #436) and combined with
             seasonal differences
     !  [ES] running properties reworked
     !  [ES] integration reworked
     !  [ES] prune data reworked (including reps. #1140, #1342)
     !  [ES] convolution reworked (including #496, #954)
     !  [ES] correlation redone - now performed via Fourier transform
     !  [ES] sampling reworked
     !  [ES] "Cumulative properties" dialog
     !  [ES] positions of drawing objects can be defined in either
             viewport/frame/world cooridnates (including #1336)
     !  [ES] implemented rotation of drawing objects (rep. #1413)
     !  [ES] frame/pointer for text objects (including rep. #1109)
     !  [ES] implemented macro expansion in cstrings (for now, timestamp and
             filename) (including rep. #20)
     *  [ES] include filename when creating sets from block data (rep. #346)
     !  [ES] changed legend length/vgap/hgap params to be defined in the
             viewport coordinates
     !  [ES] no more world coordinates for the legend placement
     !  [ES] allow legend entries to contain a single symbol instead of two
     !  [ES] set filling in legends
     !  [ES] define legend frame placement via anchor point (in the frame
             coordinates) + justification and offset vector (including rep. #833)
     !  [ES] titles/subtitles are separate objects (thus solving rep. #1075)
     !  [ES] justification for annotated values (rep. #1382)
     !  [SJ] "minimum symbol separation" option for set presentation
     *  [AM/ES] X error handler. If X server crashes in the middle of a Grace
             session, your data will be saved
     *  [AG] netCDF: parse and use calibration attributes add_offset, scale_factor
             and understand 1 byte variables
     *  [RA] enabled inout tick direction be set separately for major and minor
             ticks
     !  [ES] implemented fontsize and linewidth scales per project
     !  [ES] got rid of world stacks
     *  [ES] hotlinks now work for all set types
     !  [ES] arrows now can be filled with different from the line color/pattern

    Interface
     !  [ES] all "Plot/* appearance" dialogs replaced with Tools/Explorer for easy
             project navigation and editing (including rep. #635, #1374, #1105)
     !  [EV/ES] instant update (rep. #861)
     !  [ES] removed "Geometric transformation" and "Digital filter" dialogs.
             The funcionality is trivially achieved using the generic "Evaluate
             expression" dialog
     !  [ES] removed "Regression" dialog. The functionality will be added to
             the "Non-linear fit" dialog
     !  [ES] get rid of the hotlink popup. The functionality is moved to the
             dataset spreadsheet editor
     !  [ES] color transformations and font rastering in device setup popup
     !  [ES] high/low/smart font AA
     !  [ES] added "Command" line functionality to Console. Got rid of the old
             "Commands" dialog + (rep. #1246)
     !  [ES] page zoom (including rep. #712)
     !  [ES] sync zoom of overlaid graphs (rep. #692)
     !  [ES] sym char in set presentation (rep. #1284)
     *  [ES] dropped the "-remove", "-timestamp", and "-rvideo" command line flags
     *  [ES] dropped the "-param" and "-pexec" command line flags
     *  [ES] dropped the "-batch" and "-pipe" command line flags
     *  [ES] fonttool enhancements: preserve cursor positions, be smart about font
    	 selection escape strings (rep. #1110)
     !  [ES] context-sensitive menu on canvas
     !  [ES] some enhancements to the built-in HTML viewer
     *  [ES] added -hdevice-options command line option
     *  [ES] enabled support for wheel mouse to scroll the canvas
     *  [ES/MO] enabled support for wheel mouse for spinboxes
     !  [ES] removed all page dimension settings from View/Page setup. Page
             dimensions are properties of Project, as it should be. Also,
             sync/rescale options removed
     *  [ES] removed grace_np library
     *  [ES] draw crosshair cursor not exceeding the current frame limits
     *  [ES] removed the "autoscale on set" button from the toolbar
     !  [KK/ES] new toolbar icons
     !  [ES] implemented moving of some plot objects with Ctrl+mouse dragging
     *  [ES] got rid of "Overlay graphs" dialog
     !  [ES] moved project desription and sformat UIs from "Save as" to Explorer
     !  [ES] moved Date settings from Preferences to the Project UI
     !  [ES] moved Locator UI to Graph UI

    Drivers
     *  [ES] the drivers' framework heavily reworked
     !  [ES] imeplemented color transformations per device (including rep. #690)
     *  [ES] all drivers have the "tight bbox" option (including rep. #714)
     *  [ES] implemented (optional) CMYK colorspace in the (E)PS output (rep. #928)
     *  [ES] implemented Grayscale/RGB/CMYK option in the PDF driver
     *  [ES] PDF-1.3/1.4/1.5 selection; default output PDF format is now 1.4
             (Acrobat5)
     *  [ES] implemented patterned fills in PDF
     *  [ES] fp precision in PDF is now selectable
     *  [ES] implemented kerning in PDF (when supported by PDFlib)
     *  [ES] BBox and resources at the top of PS output
     *  [ES] font embedding/subsetting in PS (rep. #927)
     *  [ES] PS output optimizations
     *  [ES] HiResBoundingBox in PS
     *  [ES] rewritten raster drivers to use the Xmi library instead of GD. This
             made the raster drivers full-featured: previously missing features -
    	 winding fillrule, patterned lines are implemented and many weird
    	 things fixed (including rep. #1275)
     *  [ES] per a popular demand, added "printable" option for EPS as a
             workaround for brain-damaged EPS importing software
     *  [ES] implemented page clipping in *PS

    Defaults
     *  [ES] gracerc no longer used
     *  [ES] default template is now Default.xgr
     *  [ES] removed allowDoubleClick Xresource
     *  [ES] changed default page size to A4

    Documentation
     *  [ES] install PDF versions of FAQ and User's Guide instead of DVI

    Portability/Compilation
     *  [RB] VMS updates
     *  [ES] dropped support for libhelp
     *  [ES] switched to autoconf-2.5 (rep. #1392)
     *  [ES] Xpm library is now a must for the GUI
     *  [ES] require PDFlib >= 6.0.0 for the PDF driver

    Bug fixes
     *  [ES] polygon regions were displayed incorrectly for non-linear scales
             (rep. #729)
     *  [ES] background fill exceeded postscript bounding box (rep. #992)
     *  [ES] fixed fonttool resizing (rep. #1168)
     *  [ES] fixed crash in PDF driver when using fonts lacking .afm files
             (rep. #1287)
     *  [ES] fixed precision of the dobject coordinates (rep. #1227)
     *  [ES] importing data from the command line doesn't set project name
             (rep. #1281)
     *  [ES] when a set was killed, the next set was often plotted black
             (rep. #1362)
     *  [ES] fixed font width calculation in the Xbae widget

     Legend:

        [EV]  - Ed Vigmond <vigmonde(at-nospam)IGB.UMontreal.CA>
        [AM]  - Alexander Mai <st002279(at-nospam)hrzpub.tu-darmstadt.de>
        [AG]  - Alexey Goldin <Alexey.Goldin(at-nospam)jpl.nasa.gov>
        [RB]  - Richard Brodie <R.Brodie(at-nospam)rl.ac.uk>
        [SJ]  - Steven G. Johnson <stevenj(at-nospam)deas.harvard.edu>
        [MO]  - Marius Olechnovicius <img(at-nospam)patikimi.lt>
        [RA]  - Robert Atwood <r.atwood(at-nospam)imperial.ac.uk>
        [KK]  - Karim Kaschani <karim.kaschani(at-nospam)arcormail.de>
        [ES]  - Evgeny Stambulchik <evgeny(at-nospam)stambulchik.net>

        "!" means no documentation provided (yet)