%%% File: whats.new
%%% A part of mfpic 0.5.0 2001/10/30
%%%

What's new since mfpic 0.4?
--------------------------------

  * Axis commands:

    There are now 6 axes that can be drawn, besides x- and y-axis there
    are four border axes.
    All axes may be dashed, dotted, etc., just like any curve.

  * Tick marks:

    They can now be on either side or centered (or even off-center).
    They can be drawn on any of the 6 axes.

  * Additional text labels:

    Instead of issuing one \tlabel command for every label, there is now
    a \tlabels command to list all the labels at once.
        There is an abbreviation, \axislabels, for the special task of
    placing labels along an axis.
        There is a command, \tlabelsep, for setting a default separation
    of a label from its point of placement, and another \tlabeloffset,
    for shifting all following labels in a particular way.
        There is command, \tlabeljustify, for changing the default
    justification of the text in all following labels.
        And a command, \plottext, which will place the same bit of text
    at every one of a list of points.

  * Framing text:

    Given a bit of text, we now have commands for creating a rectangle,
    oval or circle that exactly surrounds it. This allows clearing the
    shape before placing the text, and the curve created can be dashed,
    dotted, etc., like any other mfpic curve.

  * Transformation prefixes:

    Transformation prefixes can be used to alter the path that follows.
    In addition to \rotatepath, we have now \shiftpath, \scalepath,
    \xscalepath, \yscalepath, \slantpath, \xslantpath, \yslantpath,
    \reflectpath and \xyswappath.

  * Misc. commands:

    There are now some commands for facilitating the creation of bar and
    pie charts, automatically calculating the correct proportions from
    supplied data.
        A new command now exists for filling the graph with a
    graph-paper like grid of lines, and a similar one for polar
    coordinates.
        There are two new commands for selecting colors in the graph:
    \tlabelcolor, and \backgroundcolor. Despite its name,
    \backgroundcolor doesn't change the background, but tells mfpic what
    color the background will be (\gclear will then use it).

  * Misc. changes:

    -- \grid takes an optional argument for the size of the dots.
    -- \datafile and \plotdata take an optional argument: p for
       polygonal or s for smooth.
    -- \plot, \plotsymbol, and \plotnodes formerly required a path name
       Triangle, etc.) for one argument. They now accept a picture or
       (in metapost) a string. You can do \plot{btex $\bullet$ etex}...
       or \plotsymbol{"a"}...  (provided \bullet has a robust
       meaning and " is not active).
    -- The symbol name Star now produces the standard 5-pointed star,
       and the new SolidStar is the same shape filled in. The old shape
       was just five straight lines, which is now provided by a new
       name, Asterisk.
    -- The \mfpic command's optional arguments are now both truely
       optional (default scale is 1).
    -- All commands that take an optional smoothness specification (s or
       p), now allow the s to be followed by a tension value.
    -- \\ now works (mostly) in labels when \metapost option is
       selected.
    -- Some commands have been made somewhat more error tolerant
       (invalid optional arguments replaced by defaults).
    -- New command: \everytlabel{...}. The contents are saved, to be
       inserted at the start of each \tlabel. This gets around the fact
       that each line of a \tlabel is a group. These tokens are inside
       the \tlabel group, but outside the group of each line.

  * Plus:

    HUGE numbers of small changes, refinements, improvements(?), bug
    fixes, new bugs, etc. In particular, shading of a region by metafont
    was speeded up at least 600 percent (for the default parameters in
    regions of about 400x400 pixels, less for smaller regions).

Known issues:

 -- The bug (reported below) in supp-pdf.tex has not been fixed as of
    this writing.

 -- Between 0.4.22 and 0.5.0 the handling of \datafile and \plotdata
    changed. Formerly, they added redundant parentheses around the
    points output to the figure file. This no longer happens. These
    redundant parentheses were never documented so they could be removed
    for possible future changes (still pending). Users of 0.4.0 or
    later, who discovered them and relied on them, will have to make
    sure their \using command now includes all needed parentheses, such
    as the default: \using{#1 #2 #3}{(#1,#2)}.

  -- Under the metapost option mfpic may be fooled in its automatic
     detection of whether it is being run for the first time. MFpic uses
     the existence of the first output file, figname.1, to deduce that
     it has been run before. An error in the first figure could leave
     mfpic perpetually running in first-time mode. At the other extreme,
     the existence of *only* figname.1 could have mfpic trying to
     include many nonexistent figures, which can drastically slow
     processing. Plans have been made for a mechanism to override
     mfpic's detection, but that will await a future version. Until
     then, if the problem arises the user can try placing the
     undocumented commands \mfpicdrafttrue or \mfpicdraftfalse after the
     \opengraphsfile command. They should not be used in the metafont
     option.

What's new between mfpic 0.2.10.9 and 0.4?
------------------------------------------

 -- An option to produce a MetaPost source file instead of Metafont;
    supported by grafbase.mp, the MetaPost equivalent of grafbase.mf.

 -- Under the metapost option, an option to pass responsibility for
    \tlabel's to MetaPost. This allows rotation of text labels.

 -- Under the metapost option, an option to let MetaPost calculate the
    bounding box of the figure (rather than force it to the nominal
    boundaries).

 -- An option to clip all pictures to the nominal boundaries set by the
    \mfpic command.

 -- An option to center the lines of multi-line \tcaption's.

 -- A debug option.

These options are LaTeX options, but their functionality is also
supplied by switches that work in plainTeX.

 -- Under the metapost option, commands for specifying the color of
    graph elements. Also, optional arguments to the following commands
    for specifyng the color to use: \draw, \gfill, \arrow, \hatch,
    \thatch, \rhatch, \lhatch, and \xhatch. And a new command
    \mfpdefinecolor, for defining color names to use in these and other
    commands.

 -- New commands, \datafile and \plotdata, for drawing curves based on
    suitable data in external files.

 -- New commands, \dashpattern and \gendashed, for drawing curves with
    arbitrary dashing patterns.

 -- New commands:
        \plotsymbol     Places a specified shape at specified points.
        \plot           Similar to \dotted, but uses a specified shape
                        instead of dots.
        \plotnodes      Places a specified symbol at all the "nodes" of
                        a curve.
    Available symbols are Triangle, Circle, Square, Diamond, Plus,
    Cross, Star, SolidTriangle SolidCircle, SolidSquare, and
    SolidDiamond.

 -- New command \fcncurve that, if provided a sequence of points with
    increasing x-coordinates, will draw a curve through them guaranteed
    to have increasing x-coordinates.

 -- New command \polkadot for filling a region with a polkadot pattern

 -- Enhanced metafont code for \shade giving better looking results.

 -- The \tile and \tess commands now actually work sometimes.

 -- The figure placement code now takes the height and depth of text
    labels into account.

 -- The macro \fdef, while documented, was not actually defined! Now it
    is.

 -- Numerous small bug fixes (but probably also new bugs) and fine
    tuning of some macros.

Known issues.
---------------

 -- When mfpic is used in LaTeX, and babel is used with the frenchb
    language option, and if pdflatex is used, then the \usemetapost
    command must occur before \usepackage[...]{babel}. If the metapost
    option to the mfpic package is used, then mfpic must be loaded
    before babel, or all mfpic environments will generate an error on
    the second run, and produce no picture.

    This is a bug in the file supp-pdf.tex (it has been reported). Any
    attempt to include a MetaPost graphic (with or without mfpic) will
    fail if \usepackage[pdftex]{graphics} is issued after
    \usepackage[frenchb]{babel}. MFpic's MetaPost support causes the
    graphics package to be loaded with the pdftex option, hence the
    above restriction on the order. Other packages that make the colon
    character active can also interfere with supp-pdf.tex. The only
    universal solution is a change to supp-pdf.tex.

 -- In beta 0.4 of mfpic, code to detect latex/amstex was incorrect.
    Please update to version 0.4.05 at least (which should be found
    where you found this whats.new file).

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