Re: [Gretl-users] dashed lines

On Fri, 24 Oct 2008, Sven Schreiber wrote: One thing I'd like to say about this and other recent gnuplot-related dicussions: there comes a point when you can't avoid getting your hands dirty. What I mean is: if you google "gnuplot GUI", you get 250000 hits. The Net is full of clever and incomplete GUI clients for gnuplot that few people use, if any. This is because gnuplot is a complex program and a simple, clean and complete GUI interface for everyone's needs is arguably beyond human possibilities. IMHO, gretl does an OUTSTANDING job at GUI-fying the small subset of gnuplot features that are likely to be most useful to an applied economist. But you can't expect gretl to do all the work for you. If you need, say, dashes (which I personally don't like very much; being the grumpy old man that I am, I much prefer linespoints) or vertical lines, or other fancy stuff, then use gretl as a springboard, get to the point when the job is mostly done and then refine the gnuplot script by hand, or possibly export to fig format and use Xfig (if you're an old man like myself) or inkscape (for you spoiled brats). This does not mean that I'm against incorporating GUI facilities for gnuplot in gretl: I only think that this shouldn't be gretl's main job. After all, gnuplot has always been meant for scripting usage. Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti Dipartimento di Economia Università Politecnica delle Marche r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it http://www.econ.univpm.it/lucchetti