FAQ: Difference between revisions

FAQ (edit)

Revision as of 20:44, 25 May 2016

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 Octave is also free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 3, as published by the Free Software Foundation, or at your option any later version.
-==Why are the developers planning to replace Gnuplot with an OpenGL backend?==
-The development of Octave is committed to being both compatible with Matlab and adding additional features. Toward those ends, the development community has chosen to introduce a native OpenGL backend that supports Matlab handle graphics and its uicontrols. Starting with the 3.8 release, Octave now uses OpenGL graphics by default with FLTK widgets. A Qt OpenGL toolkit is also [https://github.com/goffioul/QtHandles under development].
-There are no plans to remove the gnuplot backend. While a better backend may some day become the new default plotter, the gnuplot backend will still be available as long as our users find it useful.
 == How can I cite Octave? ==
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 made it free software so we could reuse large chunks of it which were
 incorporated in what is now the Octave GUI.
+=Graphics: backends and toolkits=
+==What are the supported graphics backends?==
+The current default is OpenGL, throught the "qt" graphics toolkit.  The "ftlk" toolkit also relies on OpenGL.
+Alternatively, Gnuplot can be used as a graphics backend by selecting the "gnuplot" graphics toolkit.
+==Why did you replace Gnuplot with an OpenGL backend?==
+The development of Octave is committed to being both compatible with Matlab and adding additional features. Toward those ends, the development community has chosen to introduce a native OpenGL backend that supports Matlab handle graphics and its uicontrols. Starting with the 3.8 release, Octave uses OpenGL graphics by default (with FLTK widgets in Octave 3.8 and Qt widgets in Octave 4.0 and later).
+==Are there any plans to remove the gnuplot backend?==
+There are no plans to remove the gnuplot backend. Even though the default graphics toolkit is now "qt", which uses OpenGL graphics with Qt widgets, the gnuplot backend will still be available as long as our users find it useful.
+==How can I implement a new graphics backend/toolkit?==
+This is one of those times where the best documentation is to read the existing code. We have three different toolkits in Octave now, so there are some examples to draw from.