[Kst] update changes

[Brisset, Nicolas]

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : George Staikos [mailto:staikos at kde.org] 
> Envoyé : dimanche 28 mai 2006 20:34
> À : kst at kde.org
> Objet : [Kst] update changes
> 
> 
> In the view updates branch I have made two major changes:
> 
> 1) Scalars now trigger updates the way all other view objects 
> do.  It is possible (I haven't checked) that user-modified 
> vector changes don't trigger updates still, but this is much 
> less of a concern at the moment.  I think I was able to 
> implement this without performance regressions and we will 
> test it with some sessions this week to make sure that the 
> labels all update properly.
Hum, that sounds like good news. Does it mean that if you have added a label in a plot to display, say [VEC1-Mean] it will update automatically if you change data files or sample ranges ?

> 2) The event monitor got some major changes:
>    a) It no longer crashes or races when an event fires - 
> things are done in the right thread.
>    b) It can now execute KstScript when an event fires
So, my feature request #101823 was actually implemented ? How nice... Now, if this allows to do what I described in the companion request #101825 (which was also linked with a discussion back in July 2005 about indexed access into vectors, which I think has not yet been implemented), that would be just... great !!! I'd appreciate an update on what is already implemented, and if there are plans for the rest.
As far as my needs are concerned, the fact that scripts are triggered before or after the updates is not really an issue (we mostly use non-streaming data anyway), but I understand it could be important for other users: let us hear what they think !

> [...] I hope to make a full Kst release by the end of the 
> week.  We need one due to NAD integration.  I discovered that 
> NAD requires a minor change in KstDataSource, so we can't 
> just package the datasource plugin.  Any other changes that 
> need to go into the next release?  Any other feedback on updates?
I'm taking this opportunity to list the changes I'm most eager to have in a next version. I'm well aware that it can't all go into a new release this week, but maybe some of it will ? I'm ready to make new bugzilla entries if it helps, but most of these have already been provided to either bugzilla or the mailing list.
1) Changes/bugs preventing me from upgrading the kst version in use (due to users complaining very loud):
- no longer possible to change the size (or other aspect attributes) of all legends without changing their contents as well (used to be possible from the plot dialog, see bug #120484 "Too many places to edit a legend" and my last comments). Note that this is linked with the fact that some font sizes have become ridiculously small at some point, and some users do reload "old" .kst files...
- printing is not 100% OK (I need to experiment a bit to make a detailed list of remaining problems, we had some discussions regarding the B&W printing tool and legend scaling but some of the problems have been fixed already)
2) Features whose lack prevents some uses of kst (I'd like to make it the only reference tool in the long run and these changes are required for that):
- string variables and datasource metadata, so that users can add this metadata to their plots and know what they are looking at in a few months. This can only be done manually at present, and we have another tool that handles this automatically... (Note that these strings should of course also update automatically when e.g. a data file is changed). This is linked with (or equivalent to) features #124573, #120772 and #120749...
- the ability to work with multiple files efficiently directly from the wizard, as explained in feature request #124942. Currently, some colleagues insist on continuing to use gaiw because of this, even though gaiw/xmgrace are by far not as nice as kst in many other aspects.

I'll stay tuned, so if you have questions or comments, don't hesitate!

Nicolas