GnuPlotPlugin Discussions

A bit of boring background: I hacked this plugin together after searching in vain for a plugin that can do complex plots. We intend to use it in our software development environment by automatically uploading unit test results from nightly builds (in csv format) and displaying the results in TWiki. The results will produce graphs in a similar format to those we receive from our customer for the systems we are trying to model. This way we can quickly compare the performance of the modeled system to the real system and if something has gone wrong we can use the history in TWiki to determine the exact nightly build in which it has gone wrong.

If I have time I would like to improve the 'Edit Plot Settings' dialog. I would like to have more of the Gnuplot options selectable rather than just providing a raw editor for the gnuplot config file.

-- AbieSwanepoel - 17 Apr 2006

Thanks for doing and sharing this plugin, Abie - very useful functionality. And a very interesting usecase you have for it, we need to hear a lot more about that when it's done!

I have taken the liberty to put your plugin into SVN (See Bugs:Item2122). I have done a minor update on the docs (adding a few examples) and changed default execution path for gnuplot - before uploading a new version of it to GnuPlotPlugin.

(Btw: That the plugin is now in SVN doesn't mean you have to do future updates in SVN - but if you would like to, you can visit RequestAccessToDevelopBranch to get started).

- Hope you don't mind me throwing a map of Denmark in the examples - thought it was a bit of fun, with the two of us being (almost) Wikipedia:Antipodes.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 17 Apr 2006

Thank you very much for sharing this Plugin with the growing TWikiCommunity!

Overall good documentation. Some feedback:

• The GNUPLOTPATH setting is a security issue, this should be moved into a configuration setting for public TWiki sites
• How about measuring and documenting the PluginBenchmarks?
• Better to escape GnuPlot in the SHORTDESCRIPTION
• In the Plugin Installation Instructions, an indented TWiki table looks nicer. Also, not all files in the ZIP are listed. Example TWiki table format:
  • Unzip GnuPlotPlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory.
    Content:

    File:	Description:
    data/TWiki/GnuPlotPlugin.txt	Plugin topic
    data/TWiki/GnuPlotPlugin.txt,v	Plugin topic repository
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/GnuPlotPlugin.pm	Plugin Perl module

Don't forget to tag/add a tag vote to give it some visibility.

-- PeterThoeny - 19 Apr 2006

Thanks for the extra examples with Gnuplot source. I like the map!

-- AbieSwanepoel - 19 Apr 2006

I benchmarked the plugin using PluginBenchmarkAddOn and added the results to the plugin topic. What is the procedure for synchronising the plugin topic on the plugins web with its svn counterpart?

-- AbieSwanepoel - 19 Apr 2006

Thanks. ReadmeFirst and PluginsInSubversion has the details on how to handle Plugins in svn.

-- PeterThoeny - 19 Apr 2006

Took the suggested changes into SVN and uploaded new version (together with a few minor bug fixes). I expect to be able to leave this alone for a while now, so feel free to work from here in an SVN checkout - hopefully in a few days you'll be able to commit changes in yourself

BTW: Surfed the plotting waves at google and found http://ploticus.sourceforge.net/doc/welcome.html. It doesn't do 3D, but it stages itself as "A script driven business graphics package", and it really has some nice renderings. On top it seems to be conceptually a lot like gnuplot. Ever tried it?

-- SteffenPoulsen - 19 Apr 2006

Added Ploticus functionality in as PloticusPlugin.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 27 Apr 2006

Removed GNUPLOTPATH setting from plugin topic (security issue, as pointed out by Peter) - uploaded new version.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 27 Apr 2006

See my remarks at PloticusPluginDev.

-- MichaelDaum - 28 Apr 2006

Thanks, Michael - added Sandbox.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 30 Apr 2006

Thanks Steffen for fixing the security issue so quickly on the two Plugins.

-- PeterThoeny - 30 Apr 2006

He's using SVN.

-- FranzJosefSilli - 30 Apr 2006

I couldn't get this plugin to work at first in Freetown (4.2.0). I kept getting the error

Can't call method "sysCommand" on an undefined value

After trying quite a few things and was about to give up, I finally found a fix thanks to the LatexModePlugin by Main.ScottHoge. The line in lib/TWiki/Plugins/GnuPlotPlugin/Plot.pm

my $sandbox = $TWiki::sharedSandbox ;

needed to be modified for TWiki 4.2:

my $sandbox = $TWiki::sharedSandbox || $TWiki::sandbox ;

This fixed my problem. I believe PloticusPlugin, since it is derived from GnuPlotPlugin, will need the same fix.

Also, should the plugin be modified to write to WorkingDir/tmp rather than /tmp?

-- TonyLiu - 01 Feb 2008