Turn auto-ticks on automatically for zoom mode?

[Daniel J Sebald]

I'm working with an application right now that manually places tick
marks for axes. When a plot with manual tics is zoomed, typically the x
and y axes don't have any tick marks on screen because the manually
placed tics are outside the view. Or maybe it is just one tick visible,
but one tick really isn't helpful for judging dimension.

What are people's thoughts on forcing auto-ticks to "on" when going into
zoom mode? I recall a discussion from many years ago about zooming done
in the outboard driver without the aid of gnuplot-core plotting, and one
of the reasons it was a no-go was because doing zooming that way didn't
create new tick marks and left plot symbols overly large, etc. That's
pretty much the same scenario with manual tick placement. Zooming is a
random thing, so there's no way the person who places the manual ticks
can anticipate what adequate annotation might be.

Dan

[Ethan A Merritt]

Post by Daniel J Sebald
I'm working with an application right now that manually places tick
marks for axes. When a plot with manual tics is zoomed, typically the x
and y axes don't have any tick marks on screen because the manually
placed tics are outside the view. Or maybe it is just one tick visible,
but one tick really isn't helpful for judging dimension.

One option is to use the "add" keyword with manually placed tics.
That way they supplement rather than replacing the auto-generated tics.
Well, unless the manually added tic is at the same coordinate as an
auto-generated tics - then it does replace it.

Post by Daniel J Sebald
What are people's thoughts on forcing auto-ticks to "on" when going into
zoom mode? I recall a discussion from many years ago about zooming done
in the outboard driver without the aid of gnuplot-core plotting, and one
of the reasons it was a no-go was because doing zooming that way didn't
create new tick marks and left plot symbols overly large, etc. That's
pretty much the same scenario with manual tick placement. Zooming is a
random thing, so there's no way the person who places the manual ticks
can anticipate what adequate annotation might be.

I have thought about but never seriously looked at introducing the
notion of a "zoom tic" variant. These tics would be hidden at the
initially specified resolution but would appear if you zoomed in
enough (whatever "enough" might be).
The idea was to work around the limitation you mention of zooming
after the fact in svg/pdf/canvas/... viewers.

Ethan

[Daniel J Sebald]

[snip]

Post by Ethan A Merritt

Post by Daniel J Sebald
What are people's thoughts on forcing auto-ticks to "on" when going into
zoom mode? I recall a discussion from many years ago about zooming done
in the outboard driver without the aid of gnuplot-core plotting, and one
of the reasons it was a no-go was because doing zooming that way didn't
create new tick marks and left plot symbols overly large, etc. That's
pretty much the same scenario with manual tick placement. Zooming is a
random thing, so there's no way the person who places the manual ticks
can anticipate what adequate annotation might be.

I have thought about but never seriously looked at introducing the
notion of a "zoom tic" variant. These tics would be hidden at the
initially specified resolution but would appear if you zoomed in
enough (whatever "enough" might be).
The idea was to work around the limitation you mention of zooming
after the fact in svg/pdf/canvas/... viewers.

The zoom tics would disappear after pressing "u" to go back to full
range, correct?

The good thing is that the mouse coordinates and ruler are always there
as a fall-back of sorts. With that, one can measure the start and stop
of some points of interest. Of course, the zoom box also displays
coordinates so that too can be used in a roundabout way to get dimensions.

Some observations:

* I see that the "help zoom" documentation indicates "Zooming is usually
accomplished by holding down the left mouse button". For me it is the
left mouse button. I know it can change depending on system, but which
is the most likely to be the case?

* Also, "help zoom" indicates "The option `zoomcoordinates` determines
if the coordinates of the zoom box are
drawn at the edges while zooming. This is on by default. If the option
`zoomjump` is on" However, there is nothing in the documentation that
suggests what or where the "option" refers to... OK, after looking
around a bit, I see that the options refer to "mouse". It might be nice
to mention in the documentation that this refers to an option for "mouse".

Dan

[Daniel J Sebald]

Post by Daniel J Sebald
* I see that the "help zoom" documentation indicates "Zooming is usually
accomplished by holding down the left mouse button". For me it is the
left mouse button.

I meant to write for me it is the _right_ button.

Dan

[Petr Mikulik]

Post by Daniel J Sebald

Post by Daniel J Sebald
* I see that the "help zoom" documentation indicates "Zooming is usually
accomplished by holding down the left mouse button". For me it is the
left mouse button.

I meant to write for me it is the _right_ button.

It depends on hand - for me it is most frequently the left mouse button. So
that might be better to write "with mouse button 3" as later in the same text.

Post by Daniel J Sebald
However, there is nothing in the documentation that suggests what or where
the "option" refers to... OK, after looking around a bit, I see that the
options refer to "mouse". It might be nice to mention in the documentation
that this refers to an option for "mouse".

Would you prefer to start "help zoom" by "Zooming by mouse is usually
accomplished by ..."?

---
PM

[Daniel J Sebald]

Post by Petr Mikulik

Post by Daniel J Sebald

Post by Daniel J Sebald
* I see that the "help zoom" documentation indicates "Zooming is usually
accomplished by holding down the left mouse button". For me it is the
left mouse button.

I meant to write for me it is the _right_ button.

It depends on hand - for me it is most frequently the left mouse button.
So that might be better to write "with mouse button 3" as later in the
same text.

Post by Daniel J Sebald
However, there is nothing in the documentation that suggests what or
where the "option" refers to... OK, after looking around a bit, I see
that the options refer to "mouse". It might be nice to mention in the
documentation that this refers to an option for "mouse".

Would you prefer to start "help zoom" by "Zooming by mouse is usually
accomplished by ..."?

Maybe something like adding

See 'set mouse' for options.

at the end of the entry. This comes about because users are allowed to
shortcut some of the documentation entries. Technically it should be
"help set mouse zoom", I guess. But "help zoom" takes one there too.
It's analogous to an HTML-based online manual/help page with no backward
links, i.e., How did I get here?

Another example is "help set mouse input". Here's a case where there is
no shortcut, i.e., no "help input", yet the documentation indicates

"
gnuplot> help mouse input
[snip]
See also the command `set mouse`.
"

when the "mouse" is a requisite, e.g., "help mouse input" is the
shortest path.

Dan

[p***@piments.com]

Post by Daniel J Sebald
Zooming is a
random thing, so there's no way the person who places the manual ticks
can anticipate what adequate annotation might be.

The zoom is random but presumably the ticks have some systematic basis.

What is kind of situation where manual ticks are needed? Is the
solution to this to be able to supply some kind of non-auto rule for
tick placement?

Peter.

[Daniel J Sebald]

Post by p***@piments.com

Post by Daniel J Sebald
Zooming is a
random thing, so there's no way the person who places the manual ticks
can anticipate what adequate annotation might be.

The zoom is random but presumably the ticks have some systematic basis.
What is kind of situation where manual ticks are needed? Is the
solution to this to be able to supply some kind of non-auto rule for
tick placement?

Very general. The application just wants to have the ticks placed
according to its rules, I guess.

What I meant by random is not the tick placement, but the box that the
user selects to zoom into. There's no way for whomever manually places
the ticks to anticipate, say, more denser ticks in an area the viewer
might look at more closely, i.e., zooming is really something only
gnuplot controls. So if the rule is to go to auto-placement in zoom
mode, and back to manual placement when leaving zoom mode it might be
just fine.

Perhaps one could argue that if the user zooms in just a fraction to cut
of some portion of the view, say, zoom 0.95 of the view, then the ticks
might jump to something different...or maybe the programmer doesn't want
any ticks and when zooming the ticks re-appearing might be undesired.
Maybe there is rare cases where auto-ticks in zoom are unwanted.

Dan

[Ethan A Merritt]

Post by Daniel J Sebald

Post by p***@piments.com

Post by Daniel J Sebald
Zooming is a
random thing, so there's no way the person who places the manual ticks
can anticipate what adequate annotation might be.

The zoom is random but presumably the ticks have some systematic basis.
What is kind of situation where manual ticks are needed? Is the
solution to this to be able to supply some kind of non-auto rule for
tick placement?

Very general. The application just wants to have the ticks placed
according to its rules, I guess.
What I meant by random is not the tick placement, but the box that the
user selects to zoom into. There's no way for whomever manually places
the ticks to anticipate, say, more denser ticks in an area the viewer
might look at more closely, i.e., zooming is really something only
gnuplot controls. So if the rule is to go to auto-placement in zoom
mode, and back to manual placement when leaving zoom mode it might be
just fine.

Did you try the earlier suggestion to use the "add" keyword when
specifying tics manually? That really should do pretty much
what you are asking for already, and if not then perhaps you can
suggest a way to improve it.


Ethan