QWIN

QWIN

Output Device Command

Direct graphical output to a the screen when using the version of Dataplot on the IBM-PC under the Windows operating system built using the Intel Fortran compiler.

The production version of Dataplot is currently built under the Windows operating system (as of 2016/04 Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 8 are supported) using the Intel Visual Fortran Composer XE (2013, SP1 version) compiler.

Dataplot is built as a QuickWin application. QuickWin provides access to some, but not all, parts of the Windows API. QuickWin is intermediate between a console application and a full blown Windows application and provides the QuickWin graphics library to generate graphics on the screen. The command

DEVICE 1 QWIN

is used to activate the Dataplot QuickWin device driver. The default DPLOGF.TEX provided in the standard Dataplot installation for Windows will have this command, so typically you do not need to enter it.

DEVICE 1 QWIN

This form directs the graphics output to the terminal screen.

DEVICE 1 QWIN <width> <height>

This form of the command allows you to specify the width and height of the graphics window in pixel units.

DEVICE 1 QWIN
DEVICE 1 QWIN 500 350

The Dataplot executable built as a QuickWin application is run as a stand alone program (we refer to this as the command line version). For the Tcl/Tk based graphical user interface (GUI) for Dataplot, a console executable is built that does not support the QWIN device driver. The QuickWin executable is not compatible with the Tcl/Tk scripts.

A few notes on the QWIN screen driver.
1. There are 3 distinct windows when running the QuickWin version of Dataplot under Windows. The largest window is called the frame window. Upon starting Dataplot, a child window is automatically started for generating the alphanumeric input and output (this is called the text window). These two windows can be resized by the user with standard Windows mouse operations. When you enter the
   DEVICE 1 QWIN

   command, a graphics window is opened.

   There are some menu items available on each of these windows. These are standard Windows menu items, not Dataplot specified menu options (the Help menu has been customized, but otherwise these are the default QuickWin menus).

   In Windows, either the text or graphics window has the "focus". The window with focus will be the window on top and this is the window that recieves I/O. The default Dataplot behaviour is that when a graph is generated, focus switches to the graphics window and remains there after the plot is completed. This leaves the graphics window over the text window. To type a new command, click the mouse in the text window. Clicking the mouse on a window switches the focus to that window. Ideally, we would like to leave the graphics window on top and have the I/O switch to the text window. However, this doesn't seem possible at the moment.

   The 11/18/96 version added the command:

   SET QWIN FOCUS <TEXT/GRAPHICS>

   to allow the user to specify which window gets the focus after the completion of a plot. Specifying TEXT returns the focus to the text window while specifying GRAPHICS leaves the focus on the graphics window. The default value is TEXT.

   If the text and graphics windows are tiled, there is less need to set the focus to the graphics window.

   One other quirk is that sometimes the text window does not scroll properly when Dataplot is first initiated. You can scroll the window manually via the mouse and scroll bar. Also, the buffer for scrolling backward in the text window is rather limited (a few screens worth, but not much further).

   Note: The number of scroll lines in the buffer has been increased to 500 lines. Also, the scrolling when Dataplot is first initiated now works better.

2. This device driver supports color. Enter the command SHOW COLORS VGA for a list of available colors. Also, output sent to a black and white Postscript printer is NOT affected by the choice of colors for the screen. This means you can chose foregrand and background colors that work well on the screen without harming your Postscript output.

   The initial version of the QWIN driver only supports the 15 VGA colors. A probable future enhancement is to extend the full range of Dataplot colors to super VGA and direct color monitors.

   Note: The QWIN device now supports the full range of colors supported in Dataplot.

3. Hardware characters are supported. Dataplot requests a fixed size font at the user specified size. The QuickWin library returns the closest match to the requested font.

   The screen characters may seem smaller than characters generated with a software font. This is due to the fact that the QWIN library will match to a smaller size rather than a larger size. You can specify a software font to the screen while leaving the hardware font for the file devices by entering the command:

   DEVICE 1 FONT SIMPLEX

   We will probably add more complete support for the fonts provided by the QuickWin library in later releases. Specifically, this means allowing the user to specify the desired type face (e.g., Helvetica, Times Roman) and providing support for proportional spaced fonts.

4. Dashed lines and software line thickness is supported for the QuickWin device. The CROSS-HAIR command (for graphical input) is also supported.

5. The Intel Fortran Compiler has trouble if the monitor is set to "True Color" mode. The sympton is that the text window does not appear to show any characters (i.e., it is simply a blank screen). True color is set from the Windows 95/98/NT control panel.

   If your monitor is set to true color mode, enter the following commands in the "C:\Dataplot\DPLOGF.TEX" start-up file (the drive name may differ on your system):

   SET QWIN COLOR DIRECT
   DEVICE 1 QWIN
   

   Note that in this case, the order of the commands is critical. That is, the color mode must be set when the QWIN device is initialized, not after. The command SET QWIN COLOR COLOR VGA resets the default.

   For true color, the QWIN device driver supports the full range of color supported by Dataplot (enter HELP COLORS for a description of the Dataplot color model). The default VGA mode only supports 16 colors.

   The foreground and background colors for the text window can be set for both standard VGA and the true color mode by entering the following commands after the SET QWIN COLOR command but before the DEVICE 1 QWIN command:

   SET QWIN TEXT BACKGROUND COLOR <index>
   SET QWIN TEXT FOREGROUND COLOR <index>
   

   where <index> is an integer identifying the desired color (HELP COLOR gives the index to color mapping). For the default VGA mode, <index> is limtited to 0 to 15. For direct mode, <index> is between 0 and 88. The default is a white foreground on a black background.

   The colors for the graphics window are set with the normal Dataplot COLOR commands (e.g., LINE COLOR YELLOW).

   Note: The above section was relevant for older versions of the Intel compiler and older versions of the Windows operating systems. You should no longer need to enter any of these commands.

The following command line options are now supported:
• The size of the initial frame window (in pixels) can be set by selecting one of the following options:
  -svga -large -extrawide

  where "-svga" sets a size of 950 by 700, -large sets a size of 1150 by 1000, and -extrawide sets a size of 1600 by 1000. These values are the number of pixels. If none of these is entered, the -svga settings will be used.

  Alternatively, you can enter explicit values for the height and width of the frame window with the -w and -h options. For example, to set the width and height to 1150 and 1000, respectively, enter

  -w1150 -h1000

  The recommended choice is basically a matter of taste and the resolution you have set for your monitor.

• You can use the following option to set "true color" mode:
  -true

  This is not preferred over the SET QWIN COLOR DIRECT as it will show the initial sign-on message.

  Note: This option is no longer needed and should not be used.

• By default, Dataplot overlaps the text and graphics windows. You can specify tiled mode with the following option:
  -tile

  You can also enter

  -notile

  to specify the non-tiled mode.

  Tile mode has the advantage that the text and graphics windows do not overlap. The advantage of non-tiled mode is that the graphics window has a landscape orientation which is more similar to what the printed graphics will have.

The order for these options does not matter.

The menus accessible on the frame window are the default menus generated by the Intel compiler.

As of the 11/2002 version, the menu items under the Help menu now access Dataplot help rather than help for the compiler.

The handling of text with hardware fonts was upgraded for the 2016/04 version.

The following two commands were added:

SET QWIN FONT WEIGHT <BOLD/NORMAL>
SET QWIN FONT STYLE <ITALIC/NORMAL>


These commands allow you to request bold and italic appearance for fonts.

The SET QWIN FONT command was updated to support the following specific fonts

SET QWIN FONT ARIAL
SET QWIN FONT TIMES NEW ROMAN
SET QWIN FONT SYMBOL
SET QWIN FONT ROMAN
SET QWIN FONT MODERN
SET QWIN FONT SCRIPT
SET QWIN FONT COURIER
SET QWIN FONT HELVETICA
SET QWIN FONT PALATINO
SET QWIN FONT TERMINAL
SET QWIN FONT SYSTEM
SET QWIN FONT VERDANA
SET QWIN FONT GEORGIA


The fonts installed on a given system may vary on specific platforms. The above fonts were chosen because they are relatively common and should be available on most systems. However, it is possible that you may not have one or more of these fonts on your system.

Note that when Dataplot requests a font (the font family, the height and width, the use of bold or italic), the QuickWin library will try to match to the closest available font (the priority order is height, font family, width, and fixed or proportional font).

The SYMBOL font can be used to print Greek characters using hardware text.

The QuickWin library was originally part of the MicroSoft Fortran compiler. The Microsoft Fortran compiler became the Compaq Fortran compiler and then the Digital Visual Fortrtan compiler before being merged into the Intel Fortran compiler. Earlier versions of Dataplot were built using the various versions of these compilers.

None

None

HARDWARE TEXT	-	limited support. Dataplot requests a fixed space font at the user requested size. The QuickWin library returns the closest matching font.
COLOR	-	the QWIN driver supports the full range of colors supported by Dataplot.
HARDWARE FILL	-	Solid fills are generated in software.
DASH PATTERNS	-	Dash patterns are supported.
LINE WIDTH	-	Thick lines are generated in software as multiple lines.
GRAPHICS INPUT	-	The CROSS-HAIR command is supported for this device.

HPGL	=	Direct graphical output to an HPGL device.
DEVICE	=	Specify certain actions for the graphics output.
POSTSCRIPT	=	Direct graphical output to a Postscript device.

Screen Graphics

11/1996
2002/11: Added the "-tile" option
2002/11: The "Help" menus modified to access Dataplot (rather than the compiler) help
2014/12: Increase the size of the buffer in the text window and fix the initial scrolling
2015/10: Check if graphics window is already open when a DEVICE 1 QWIN command is entered
2016/04: Updated handling of text with hardware fonts
2016/04: Added SET QWIN FONT WEIGHT
2016/04: Added SET QWIN FONT STYLE

 
DEVICE 1 QWIN
PLOT SIN(X) FOR X = -6 0.1 6