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FAQ: Difference between revisions
→GUI: expansion of the section to mention development, explaining about QtOctave, what is GUI octave, mention Quint, and why old projects will fail
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===Is there a GUI planned for octave?=== | ===Is there a GUI planned for octave?=== | ||
Yes but it's still in development | Yes, but it's still in development. You can try to download the [http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/get-involved.html Octave repository] and compile it yourself. The GUI is part of the gui branch. It seems to be stable enough. We tend to call it Octave GUI but it is not a separate project, it's just the Octave GUI. Note that there is a completely unrelated project named GUI octave, do not get confused (see question further down). | ||
===How come there's still no GUI for octave?=== | ===How come there's still no GUI for octave?=== | ||
The octave prompt is really really good. Also, | The octave prompt is really really good and that's what the Octave developers use. Octave is community project which means that it has the functionalities that its users are willing to spend time implementing. Since Octave developers do not need a GUI (some actually would not use one even if it existed), they have no reason to make one. Also, many people on the community are of the opinion that using a GUI slows down the learning of the language. | ||
===I want Octave developers to work on a GUI?=== | |||
If you would like the Octave developers to implement a GUI for you, consider the same route taken by others that want a specific function/capability to be implemented. Some of the octave developers will work as coders for hire. Try to ask on the [http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/get-involved.html maintainers mailing list]. This is not unlike paying a builder to add an extra room to your house. The fact there is no GUI in octave only shows that there is not enough interest for it (despite the amount of time people ask this). | |||
===What about all the Octave GUIs I find on Google?=== | |||
All GUIs for Octave that have been developed thus far are not part of Octave. And they all fail at a very important point, integration with octave. They treat Octave as a foreign black box using pipes for communication, an approach that is bound to eventually fail. This includes QtOctave (which is now abandoned and is not compatible with newer versions of octave), Xoctave (which is proprietary and commercial) and GUI octave (which is proprietary and the author is not interested to share is code to preserve its "artistic integrity"). | |||
Quint was a project for an Octave GUI that actually tried to do it right. Eventually it was merged into the Octave repository and is under development under the name Octave GUI (this is not a project, it's just the Octave GUI and is unrelated to very similarly but unrelated project GUI octave). | |||
===QtOctave has been abandoned. Why are you working on yet another GUI rather than trying to fix QtOctave?=== | |||
Read previous question. The approach taken by QtOctave for interacting with Octave is bound to fail. People could fix QtOctave and make it work again but it would eventually have problems again. Yes, it is useful, looks beatutiful and we are thankful to its developers for working on such a nice tool plus making it libre, we are in no way saying the opposite. However, it will never be stable. The Octave GUI being developed now uses code from many different projects, we are trying to not reinvent the wheel. But we want something that will achieve stability. | |||
===What about GUI Octave?=== | |||
GUI Octave is not part of the octave project despite its very deceptive name. Not only is a different project, it is also very inappropriate for this piece of closed-source software to occupy the name "GUI Octave" with the hostile anti free-software stance the developer has taken. It advertises itself as a "completely free" wrapper to "GNU Octave". It must be explicit that it is not free software as understood by GNU. This is deceptive. | |||
===How can I know more about Octave GUI?=== | |||
This is being developed as part of the Octave project so subscribe to the [http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/get-involved.html maintainers mailing list]. When you checkout the octave repository, you'll find the GUI source on the gui [http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/octave/branches branch]. | |||
===I'm having problem XXX using GUI octave, XOctave, QtOctave, etc?=== | |||
Try to install octave only without any of the non-supported by Octave GUIs and see if the problem disappears. | |||