This is blop's first implemented terminal, which was designed to be
used in LaTeX documents. This is an encapsulated postscript-like file
(hence the
eps in its name). But looking at it as a postscript
file (using a postscript-viewer, like gv) would make you cry: it looks
terribly. The reason is simple: the preamble of this file contains
LaTeX-commands (preceded by a % so that the postscript interpreters
treat them as comments), which are read by LaTeX when this file is
included in your document (this is done by the
\blopeps
LaTeX-macro provided by the blopeps.sty package coming with
blop). These clever commands put PostScript commands into the final
output file before the inclusion of the plot file itself (like
dimensions of text labels, etc), which will therefore be available for
the plot file. (This is the reason why the blopeps file looks horrible
when looking at it standalone: these dimensions are not set by the
LaTeX commands).
The
blopeps class provides the static
print(const var &filename) function, which prints the current
canvas into a file specified by its argument:
plot("datafile",_1,_2*_3);
blopeps::print("output.beps");
You will practically never need to know more about this class, so I
don't write it down now.
Once the plotfile is produced (as shown above),
the file can be included into a LaTeX document using the
\blopeps macro proided by the blopeps.sty LaTeX-package. So
don't forget to put into the preamble of your LaTeX-source:
\usepackage{blopeps}
The syntax of the \blopeps macro is:
\blopeps[optargs]{filename}. Here optargs are
optional (you can simply write: \blopeps{filename}), and
specify the size and other geometrical parameters of the included
figure. These optional args are:
- width=<dimen> or
pw=<dimen>
- Defines the width of the included
figure. If omitted, the width of the figure will be the default value,
which can be set by the macro \bloppw, so if you want to set
the default width of the figures, use this, for example:
\bloppw{7cm}. This macro in fact simply sets \blopPW.
That is, the two are equivalent:
\bloppw{7cm}
\def\blopPW{7cm}
This also means, that you can obtain the width of your current figure
as a LaTeX dimension, in any text within your figure. For example:
text::fdraw("\\begin{minipage}{\\blopPW}\\begin{center} first line \\\\ second line\\end{center}\\end{minipage}", 0.2, 0.3);
Note that you have to write every backslash duplicated (blop's
interface language is C++, and backslash has to be 'escaped' by a
backslash)
-
- height=<dimen> or
ph=<dimen>
- Defines the height of the included
figure. If omitted, the height of the figure will be the default one,
which can be set by the macro \blopph, so if you want to set
the default height of the figures, say this, for example:
\blopph{7cm}
- ps=<dimen>
- Defines the
value of the PS unit within the figure (that
is, all objects which are sized to the multiples of this unit, can be
scaled at the time of the inclusion of the figure into the
document. The symbols for drawing graphs have by default this size, so
they can also be scaled this way. If this argument is omitted, the
default value is used, which can be set with the macro
\blopps. Use this if you want to change the default for the
whole document, for example: \blopps{3mm}
- lw=<dimen>
- Defines the
vale of the LW unit within the plot, which
is the default width of all lines drawn in a plot (you can of course
change the width of any line in your blop-script, but then it will not
be possible to scale it at the time of the inclusion of the figure to
the document). The default value is can be set with
\bloplw.
- text=text-to-be-shown
- Defines an
annotation text to be shown on top of the figure (If it contains a comma, or
maybe spaces, surround it with { } ) This possibility serves to better
separate the logical content of a figure from its role in the
document. For example, when creating a plot, one should only be
concerned about what quantity is plotted (and how), and not about its
final position in a document. Later, when included in a document, as a
sub-figure of a large figure, one may want to label this figure as the
a) subfigure. If the figure's position is changed later (it is not
subfigure a) anymore, but subfigure b), then the figure does not need
to be recreated.
- textpos={xcoord,ycoord}
-
Defines the position of the text annotation. The coordinates can be
LaTeX dimens (like 1cm, etc), or a simple number without
unit (where 0,0 refers to the lower left corner of the picture, 1,1
refers to the top right corner)
- textalign=xx
- Alignment
of the annotation text. xx should be replaced by the
following letters: l (for left), r (for right), c (for center), t (for
top), b (for bottom)
- lon=<num>
-
Switch on layer number <num>. By default, all objects and graphs
are put to layer 1, and this is the only layer switched on. If some
objects or graphs are on different layers, they will by default not be
visible, unless one switches on those layers.
My suggestion is that you don't change the pointsize of your
graphs (from the default PS), or if you need points of different size
in a plot, use the multiples of PS. This way you can scale the size of
points in all of your figures in your document with one single LaTeX
commandat the beginning of the document. The same holds for lines:
don't change the width of lines, or if you need lines of different
widths, use multiples of LW.
The \blopcmd macro can be used to specify LaTeX commands,
which should be called before inserting any figure. For example if
you want that text in all of your figures be typeset with slanted
font, and with a smaller fontsize, call at the beginning of your
document:
\blopcmd{\sf\scriptsize}
Otherwise, if you want it to have an effect only for one figure,
include it in the following way:
{\sf\scriptsize \blopeps{figure.beps}}
You often want to pick a figure from a PostScript document. You can
very easily do this with blop's figures as well: since they are
included into the LaTeX/PostScript document as a PostScript file
(with some extra bookkeeping, as explained above),
simply load your PostScript file into a text editor, searh for the
text
Creator: blop (this is about the 3rd row in the
blopeps file, look for a line like
%!PS-Adobe-2.0 EPSF-2.0 somewhat above it). Now look for
a line like
%--EndOfFile--. The text between these two lines
(inclusive) was the content of the blopeps file, which was included
into the document. Copy this content to a separate file, and it is
ready to be included into a new LaTeX document with the
\blopeps macro.
