PLplot Bug Fix Release 5.6.1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This release corrects a number of outstanding issues with plplot that were
discovered subsequent to the 5.6.0 release. It represents the ongoing efforts 
of the community to improve the PLplot plotting package. Development releases 
in the 5.7.x series will be available every few months. The next full release 
will be 5.8.0.

     If you encounter a problem that is not already documented in the
PROBLEMS file, then please send bug reports to PLplot developers via the
mailing lists at http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=2915 .

     Please see the license under which this software is distributed
(LGPL), and the disclaimer of all warrantees, given in the COPYING.LIB
file.


INDEX

1. Changes relative to PLplot 5.6.0
  1.1 API
    1.1.1 f95
  1.2 Drivers
    1.2.1 psttf
    1.2.2 pstex


1. Changes relative to PLplot 5.6.0 (the previous stable release)

1.1 Fortran 95

A lot of work was done to correct a number of outstanding issues with
Fortran 95 interface. All of plplot API is now available to f95 users and
a complete set of examples was created to demonstrate how to use plplot with 
a f95. In its current form it is known to work with gfortran compiler. Due
to limitations in the current version of libtool it not possible to use both
a f77 and a f95 compiler to build plplot. If you desire both interfaces the
recommended approach is to compile the f77 interface with your f95 compiler,
which can be done by setting the FC and F77 environment variables at the
configuration stage.

- The API is defined via a module, so that the compiler can now check
  the argument types.
- It is now possible to pass arrays as assumed-shape arrays. This
  means: less arguments and less chances for interface errors.
- The module also defines specific parameters to describe PLplot
  options. This way, you can use symbolic names instead of
  numbers.
- The floating-point type PLFLT is now available as a KIND parameter,
  making it possible to use the same code for single and double
  precision applications - simply declare all real variables
  using the KIND facility and link with the corresponding version of
  the PLplot library.

More information is found in bindings/f95/readme_f95.txt


1.2 Drivers

1.2.1 psttf

This is a postscript driver that supports TrueType fonts. This allows access 
to a far greater range of fonts and characters than is possible using Type 1
postscript fonts. 

The driver requires the LASi (v1.0.5), pango and pangoft2 libraries to work.
The pango and pangoft2 libraries are widely distributed with most Linux
distributions and give the psttf driver full complex text layout (CTL)
capability (see http://plplot.sourceforge.net/examples/demo24.php for an
example of this capability).  The LASi library is not part of most
distributions at this time. The source code can be downloaded from
http://www.unifont.org/lasi/. The library is small and easy to build and
install.  Make sure you use LASi-1.0.5.  The psttf device driver uses new
capabilities in this version of LASi and no longer works with LASi-1.0.4.

This driver is now enabled by default. 

1.2.2 pstex

Permanently disable the autotools build of pstex.  Other PostScript devices
(either ps or psttf) appear to give better solutions so there doesn't seem
to be much purpose in maintaining this currently broken device.
