writing 'mouse interactive' routines to extend draw, plot2d, etc.

Hi Sheldon,

>> 1.- Some plots requiere a lot of data to be piped to Gnuplot, so that I
>> have reached the limits of piping. My solution to these problem was to
>> pipe only the commands and let data saved appart.
>>     
Sorry, but now that I have read this paragraph a second time, I see it's 
not 100% true. The only command piped to Gnuplot is " load 
'maxout.gnuplot' ", but the plotting commands and other settings remain 
in maxout.gnuplot. This is different to plot?d procedure, which pipes 
the whole set of commands directly to Gnuplot. Not sure, but this could 
be part of the answer to your last question below.

>   Since there is no direct menu available, at least in the graphic 
> window, one might use the 'shell escape' command in gnuplot to spawn 
> other processes.
>
>  There could be a command switch in draw which would escape to a shell, 
> open a window for keyboard interaction, etc.  Perhaps a certain key 
> combination (e.g. 'tw' for 'terminal window)  would open a terminal 
> window which would feed other commands to maxima and or gnuplot.
>   
You have Maxima's system command. Maybe I don't understand what you mean?

If you want something like Gnuplot's replot command, I think it could be 
implemented in the draw package as a new function... Another item to be 
added to the to-do list.

>  
>   Here is another question:  Why is it that 'draw2d' allows (apparently) 
> a full gnuplot session to be opened, but 'plot2d' does not.  For 
> instance, the third mouse zoom does not seem to work in plot2d?
>   
See possible answer above.


Mario