Clearwin vs Simpleplot

Hello !

Please, an answer to a 'simple' question:

Which is the difference between 'SIMPLEPLOT' and 'CLEARWIN' soft ?

Thank you in advance !!

Sospel

Simpleplot was a clever idea to bring higher level graphics and language within FTN95/FTN77/SCC and CWP then just the pixel manipulation or 3D polygon manipulation as in OpenGL of existing graphics libraries.

Within Clearwin+ Simpleplot offered even more simple %pl control code to make quick x-y plot with just a half of Fortran line.

      i=winio@('%pl[x_array]&',iwdh,ihgt,N,x,y)

Its plots do not look cool though. But.. If developers still controlled sources of Simpleplot library created by third party which then has abandoned the ship almost a decade ago (which is a big disaster for any software) Simpleplot would gain missing at the time of its development professional look of generated graphics still retaining its simplicity. It was just an iota from that not able to offer great looking fonts and few other minor things. It would then easily compete with Matlab or any other user friendly graphics.

@ DanRRight

Hello !

OK, this explanation suits me completely: it corresponds to what I suspected, without have the certainty of it. Thus, CLEARWIN is in a way a 'wrapper' of SIMPLEPLOT, more modern and offering more possibility of adaptation to the new equipments ...

But this to the detriment of a legibility of the programs, because the use of format codes like %pl, %gr, .... seems me to follow the rule of Shadocks : ' why make simple when we can make complicated ' 😉

Example : [color=red:38b8753ac2]i=winio@('%ff%nl%cn%tt[OK]')[/color:38b8753ac2] to write 'OK' in a little button ...

Thank you again for your explanations, always well argued 😃

Cordially Sospel

Here are exactly what is missing in Simpleplot. Anyone can see how easy it was to fix ugly Simpleplot to look like a super Pro software. Just slavishly copying these exact designs would change it forever

1. Here are examples of almost ideal fonts, ideal frame and ideal tick marks taken in Origin graphics software. I posted it that large because from my point of view it is kind of a masterpiece made either by the pro or the one with the good artistic taste:

2. here are few examples of ideal designs for X-Y and surfaceplots taken from presentations and papers

3. Here are examples of ideal histograms and pie charts

4. Here is great looking color bar (color scale)

5. The ability to add image background or gradient or the shadow to entire plotting surface is easy like 2x2 and is also important. I do not have good examples at hand, here is quickly what i am talking about :

6. Here is an example of not boring colors, clearly in style. Was it too hard to take similar colors instead of 4bit 16-color RGB palette like in Simpleplot demo examples?

7. ...and at the end here is what we get from Simpleplot %pl. Even tick marks are positioned badly, font is just Terminal or System and that's all.

But just few more options, few standard designs like above incorporated into %pl would make it preferable graphics software in our programs because Simpleplot in Fortran compiler is great idea and is truly easy to use. i have 20-30 places in the code where i hate it but still use %pl. I do not use full package of Simpleplot because it is similarly bad looking and slowly switching to my own amateurish home made software which still looks way better then Simpleplot.

@DanRRight

Very convincing demonstration 😄

Cordially ! Sospel