This is the NEWS file for PHPlot, with release documentation.
The project web site is http://sourceforge.net/projects/phplot/
The project home page is http://phplot.sourceforge.net/
Refer the the ChangeLog file for detailed source changes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2010-10-03 Release 5.2.0

Overview:

This is the current stable release of PHPlot. This release includes some
bug fixes and new features, described below, and a reimplementation of
internal processing of colors.

The PHPlot reference manual has been updated to match this release.
Horizontal plots are now documented in the manual, and the interim
documentation in the source release (HorizontalBars.txt) has been removed.
The manual is available in HTML format as a separate download from
Sourceforge.  The manual is also available for on-line viewing from the
project home page.  Starting with this release, the manual is also
available in PDF format from the project home page.


Cautions, Important Notes, and Compatibility Issues:

Due to changes in color allocation (see bug #3049726 below), image files
produced with PHPlot-5.2.0 will differ when compared byte-for-byte with
those created by earlier releases, even when the images are identical (as
they nearly always are).

If you are creating a horizontal plot with any negative X values, and not
setting the Y axis position, your plot will change (see bug #3074402 below)
because PHPlot no longer leaves the Y axis on the left for horizontal plots.

Some internal methods that used to have 'public' visibility are now protected.
This will generally prevent you from using them. The list of changed functions
can be found in the release ChangeLog. Avoid using any internal methods.

If you are making a stackedbar plot with any negative values, PHPlot-5.1.3
and earlier took the absolute value of each data value (which was not
documented), but PHPlot-5.2.0 does not. See Feature Request #3073679 below.

If your plot fills the 256 available color map slots in a palette image,
your image may look different with PHPlot-5.2.0 due to changes in color
allocation order.  This was seen on two of the tests in the PHPlot test
suite. These tests tiled a JPEG image into the plot area or image
background.  Being a truecolor image, the JPEG had a huge number of colors,
which filled all available slots in the color map. Additional colors for
plot elements had to be approximated, and different colors resulted with
PHPlot-5.2.0 versus previous releases. To avoid this problem, either use a
truecolor PHPlot object (PHPlot_truecolor constructor), or reduce the
number of colors in the background image and convert it to PNG or GIF.

This release contains significant changes to PHPlot internals. In particular,
variables and functions related to element colors and color handling have
changed. Refer to the PHPlot release ChangeLog for more details.  Remember,
if you rely on accessing any member variable, or on using any non-public
function or any function not documented in the reference section of the manual,
your code is at risk of breaking with each new release.


New features in 5.2.0:

#3077554 "Finer control over plot element colors" (partial):
  The X, Y, and main titles can now have different colors. See the PHPlot
  Reference Manual entries for SetXTitleColor and SetYTitleColor.

#3073679 "Stacked bar plots with negative values":
  A stacked bar plot can now include negative values, and stacks of negative
  values will be drawn downwards (or leftwards). See the PHPlot Reference
  Manual under "Plot Type: stackedbars" for details.


Bugs Fixed in 5.2.0:

#3045131 "SetTransparentColor problems":
  Setting a transparent color now works whether before or after setting
  the background color (for example), and also now works with a data color.

#3049726 "Optimize color allocation"
  PHPlot now defers allocating colors until drawing time, and tries to allocate
  only the colors which are actually needed. For palette images, this results
  in use of fewer color slots and slightly smaller image files.

#3074402 "Fix Y axis default for horizontal plots":
  When horizontal plots were introduced, an asymmetry with the X and Y axis
  position defaults was known but left. This behavior was later determined
  to be unhelpful. So now the Y axis on horizontal plots will default to X=0,
  or the X value closest to zero within the plot area range. This is the same
  behavior as for the X axis in vertical plots.

#3056991 "Internal methods should be 'protected'":
  More of the internal PHPlot functions were changed to 'protected' visibility,
  as the test suite was fixed to not call them directly.

#3057000 "Review 'deprecated' methods":
  One broken deprecated method (SetColor) was removed and one changed.
  Note that deprecated methods are not documented and not tested.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2010-08-30 Release 5.1.3

Overview:

This is the current stable release of PHPlot. Additional horizontal plot
types and features have been added, however horizontal plots are still
considered 'experimental'. A new callback has been added which allows
greater control over the data colors. An improved method for accessing
TrueType Font (TTF) files means that on many systems TTF text can be used
without specifying font paths.


Cautions and Important Notes:

Since the previous PHPlot release, PHP-5.3.3 and PHP-5.2.14 have been
released, and these include a fix for the TrueType Font (TTF) rendering
problem. Use of these releases is now recommended.

There has been extensive cleanup of the PHPlot code. If you have a
customized version of PHPlot, you may find it difficult to update.

The "additional data support" script phplot_data.php has been removed from
this release. The script has not been developed or tested in a long time,
and was found to have numerous problems. The script can still be found in
the CVS repository.

The changes in this release (horizontal plots, custom data color callback,
and TrueType Font handling) should not result in any compatibility issues.


New features in 5.1.3:

#3049703 "Additional horizontal plots and features":
  + Implemented data values labels in horizontal bar charts.
    Use: SetXDataLabelPos('plotin').
  + Add horizontal stacked bar charts, with data value labels.
  + Add horizontal thinbarline plots.
  Horizontal plots are still considered 'experimental', and documentation is
  in the HorizontalBars.txt text file rather than the PHPlot Reference Manual.

#3034164 "Extended control of data colors":
  New callback 'data_color' can be used to customize selection of the color
  of each bar, line segment, point marker, etc. This is documented in the
  PHPlot Reference Manual section "Custom Data Color Selection", with new
  examples in the Examples chapter.


Bugs Fixed in 5.1.3:

#3051906 "Better choice for default TT font":
  Rather than always using the unlikely 'benjamingothic.ttf' as its default
  TrueType font name, PHPlot now has a short list of sans-serif fonts, and
  tries to find one that works if a default TT font is needed.  On many
  systems, this will provide a high-quality default font without help.

#3051832 "Let PHP/GD find the font file":
  Instead of using file existence to validate a TT font file, PHPlot now
  just tries to use the font. This allows PHP/GD to use its own rules to
  try to find the font, without needing a pathname.  This works on Windows
  and at least some Linux systems.

#3048267 "phplot_data add-on is still broken"
  Not fixed. phplot_data.php has been removed from the release.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2010-06-29 Release 5.1.2

Overview:

This is the current stable release of PHPlot. Truecolor image support is no
longer considered 'experimental', and is now documented in the reference
manual. There is a new experimental feature for horizontal bar charts. This
release also contains a bug fix and new feature.


Cautions and Important Notes:

The advisory against using PHP-5.3.2 or PHP-5.2.13 with PHPlot if you use
TrueType fonts (TTF) continues. See the item below for PHPlot-5.1.1. The
good news is that this has been fixed by the PHP Team and will be in the
next releases.

Compatibility of data type and plot type are now checked completely.  If
you used an incorrect data type with certain plot types, your script may no
longer work until you fix the data type. Specifically, the area, squared,
and thinbarline plot types failed to check the data type they received, and
treated anything other than 'data-data' as 'text-data'.  If you have a
squared plot with data type 'data-data-error', for example (which is not
supposed to work), it did produce a plot, but will now result in an error.

The addition of horizontal bar charts should not impact any existing plot,
with one small exception. The function SetYDataLabelPos() used to accept
some additional, undocumented options (plotleft, plotright, both, yaxis)
and pass these through to SetYTickLabelPos() "for compatibility". It no
longer does so, as some of those are now used for horizontal bar chart
labels. To position Y tick labels, use only SetYTickLabelPos().


New features in 5.1.2:

#3002606 "Add to plot and image border options":
  SetPlotBorderType() now accepts 'right', 'top', and 'bottom', as well
      as an array of options. So you can now control exactly which of the 4
      border sides will be drawn.
  SetImageBorderType() now accepts 'solid' as a choice. This will use the
      actual color set with SetImageBorderColor(), rather than the darker
      shade as type 'plain' does (which may have been a bug).
  SetImageBorderWidth() is a new function that sets the width of the image
      border. The defaults are the same as the fixed values used before: 1
      pixel for plain, 2 pixels for raised.  The image border width is now
      accounted for in margin calculations, if it is greater than 2 (to make
      sure existing plots will not change).

#2885930 "Horizontal Bars":
  Horizontal bar charts are implemented, as an experimental feature.
  'Experimental' means they are not yet documented in the reference manual,
  and subject to change or removal.
  Refer to the text file HorizontalBars.txt for details.

#2947679 (follow-up) "Support for alpha blending/Truecolor":
  Truecolor support is now documented in the Reference Manual. The interim
  documentation file Truecolor.txt has been removed. Alpha channel
  specification now works with both constructors and both image types.  This
  fixes an issue if the base constructor was used with a truecolor background
  image. (In PHPlot-5.1.1, the result would be a truecolor image, but the
  alpha channel features were not available.)


Bug Fixed in 5.1.2:

#3010116 "Bad rendering of title in multi-plot image when using TTF":
  Make sure the main title is drawn only once, to avoid bad rendering of
  TTF titles with multiple plots due to anti-aliasing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2010-04-04 Release 5.1.1

Overview:

This is the current stable release of PHPlot. This release adds truecolor
image support as an experimental feature, fixes a number of bugs and adds
a few new features.

The PHPlot reference manual has been updated to match this release.  The
manual is available as a separate download from Sourceforge. The manual is
also available for on-line viewing from the project home page.

See the ChangeLog file in the release for more about changes and bug fixes.


Cautions and Important Notes:

Avoid using PHP-5.3.2 or PHP-5.2.13 with PHPlot if you use TrueType fonts
(TTF). Some new bugs were introduced in those releases that adversely
affects accurate positioning and rendering of TrueType font text.


New features in 5.1.1:

#2947679 "Support for alpha blending/Truecolor":
  PHPlot can now produce truecolor images, with alpha blending of colors and
  other effects. This is considered an experimental feature, meaning it is
  not yet documented in the PHPlot Reference Manual, and subject to change.
  Refer to the text file Truecolor.txt included in the PHPlot release for
  information on using truecolor.
  Two drawing changes were made to improve plot appearance with Truecolor:
  + Filled dots (in points & linepoints plots) are now drawn better. This
    also makes them look rounder with regular (non-Truecolor) plots.
  + Area plots have the areas filled without overlapping each area down to
    the Y axis. This was needed to fix problems with alpha blending, and
    should have no effect on non-Truecolor plots.

#2973995 "Add y-Data to Stackedbars":
  You can now have Y Data Labels with 'stackedbars' plots. These label the Y
  values (incremental and total) for each bar. Refer to the reference manual
  page for SetYDataLabelPos().


Bug Fixes in 5.1.1:

#2976735 "Improvements and fixes for 'area' plots":
  Moving X axis works; handle Y<0 better; new 'stackedarea' plot type is a
  variation on 'area' with the data represented differently.

#2974639 "Stacked bars plot breaks with X axis != 0":
  Moving X axis works.

#2963757 "point_counts undefined error in 5.1.0":
  Fixed an error introduced in PHPlot-5.1.0 when point size and shape arrays
  were set to the same size.

#2938219 "Bars go in wrong direction":
  For bar charts with all Y<0, bars will still be drawn down even if Y=0 is
  not in range.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2009-12-24 Release 5.1.0

Overview:

This is the current stable release of PHPlot. This release fixes a number of
bugs and adds some new features. Some of the changes in this release can
alter the appearance of plots, so be sure to review the information in this
NEWS file and test this release with your application.

The PHPlot reference manual has been updated to match this release.  The
manual is available as a separate download from Sourceforge. The manual is
also available for on-line viewing from the project home page.

See the ChangeLog file in the release for more about changes and bug fixes.


New features in 5.1.0:

+ A new "contrib" directory has been added for useful add-ons.
  This currently contains:
    * prune_labels : Control data label density on X axis.
    * color_range : Define a gradient map for data colors.

+ Feature Request 2899921 "Allow different format for data and tick labels"
  Text angle and format can now be controlled separately for data labels.

+ Locale loading override
  New variable locale_override stops PHPlot from getting locale from system.

+ Translating Coordinates
  New function GetDeviceXY() to translate world to device coordinates.

+ New drawing callback
  New callback 'draw_all', called after all drawing is done.
  The manual now contains an example of using this new callback and
  the new GetDeviceXY() function to annotate a plot.


Bug Fixes in 5.1.0:

#2914403 "Pie + X/Y titles: Undefined property error"
  X/Y titles are now properly ignored for pie charts.

#2908256 "Error: array_sum() should be an array" (drupal)
#2916864 "Should at least print legend on pie charts with empty data"
  Pie charts with invalid data (no Y values > 0) now make an empty plot.

#2906436 "Fixes for X Tick Labels vs X Data Labels"
  Smarter determination of whether to do Tick labels, Data labels, or both.

#2900914 "Problem with display of 0 on Y axis"
  Fixed rounding error that could produce something like Y=8.12345E-16.

#2886365 "PHP 5 patch" (Declare all functions and variables in PHP5 style)
  Most internal PHPlot member functions now have "protected" visibility.

#2839547 "SetImageBorderType('none')
  You can use SetImageBorderType('none') to turn the image border back off.

#1795972 "Fix default point shapes"
  We now have 20 (vs 10) point shapes, with 10 (vs 1) used by default.

#1795971 "Fix default data colors"
  We now have 16 (vs 8) default data colors, no duplicates, all visible.


Visible Changes and Possible Incompatibilities:

+ PHP5 visibility changes (Bug #2886365)
Details: Most internal PHPlot member functions now have visibility
    'protected', rather than all being public. All member variables are
    still 'public'.

Reason for the change: Use the recommended PHP5 syntax, better OO style.

Compatibility: If you were calling a PHPlot internal function that got
    changed to 'protected', this will break. Please report this.


+ Fix default point shapes (Bug 1795972)
Details: We now have 20 (vs 10) point shapes available, and by default we
    have 10 (vs 1) different shapes in use. The default size is now 6 pixels
    for all point shapes.

Reason for the changes: Using different shapes helps distinguish the data
    sets. The existing 10 defined shapes were not enough, since some of them
    are not centered over the points, too small, or otherwise hard to see.
    The code to synchronize the point shape and size arrays was broken, and
    some dubious code to adjust sizes to even numbers needed to be fixed.

Compatibility (1): If you have a points or linepoints plot with more than
    one dataset, and you did not use SetPointShapes() to configure the
    shapes, them your plot will change from using a diamond for all data
    sets to using different shapes for up to 10 data sets.

Compatibility (2): Fixing the point size/point shape array size bug may
    slightly change the size of some shapes, but it now works the way it
    was documented and supposed to work.

+ Fix default data colors (Bug 1795971)
Details: Defined a new set of 16 default data colors. The colors are
    different and contrast well against the default white background.
    The first 4 colors were not changed.

Reason for the change: The default 8 data colors included two instances
    of orange, and one color which was invisible on a white background.

Compatibility: Colors will change on any plot with more than 4 data sets
    where you did not use SetDataColors() to set your own data colors.

+ Re-used old function SetXDataLabelAngle()
Details: SetXDataLabelAngle() now does something different.

Reason for the change: This name was needed for a new function, to set the
    angle for the X Data Labels. The old use of this function was not
    documented, and marked "deprecated" in the code since around 2003-12-07.

Compatibility: If you are still using SetXDataLabelAngle() to set both Tick
    and Data label angles, you need to use SetXLabelAngle() instead.

+ Separate controls for tick and data labels (Feature Request 2899921)
Details: New functions SetXDataLabelAngle(), SetYDataLabelAngle(),
    SetXDataLabelType(), and SetYDataLabelType() to allow separate control
    over the angle and format of data labels, versus tick labels.

Reason for the change: Allow Data Labels to use different formatting and
    angle compared to Tick Labels.

Compatibility: The default behavior has been set up such that there should
    be no compatibility issues. For example:
    Old behavior: SetXLabelType() sets the type for both tick and data labels.
    New behavior: SetXLabelType() sets the type for tick labels and the
        default type for data labels.  SetXDataLabelType() sets the type for
        data labels (overrides SetXLabelType).

+ X Tick Labels vs X Data Labels (Bug 2906436)
Details: Regarding SetXTickLabelPos() and SetXDataLabelPos(): If only one
    of them is called, the behavior is unchanged (only that label type will
    be displayed). If both are called: Do exactly what was requested. If
    neither was called: display only data labels if any data labels are
    non-empty, else display only tick labels.

Reason for the change: 1) Fix the long-standing problem behavior that by
    default PHPlot overlays tick and data labels below the X axis. 2) Fix
    order dependency between setting the position of tick and data labels.
    3) Prepare for future extension of data labels, and allow both tick
    and data labels to be on if the programmer enables both.

Compatibility: There are some cases where your plot will change.
    (a) Calls neither SetXDataLabelPos() nor SetXTickLabelPos():
      Old behavior: Both tick and data labels displayed, possibly overlaid.
      New behavior: If there are any non-blank data labels, then show only
          the data labels, not the tick labels. Otherwise, show tick labels.

   (b) Calls both SetXDataLabelPos() and SetXTickLabelPos(), with other than
       'none' for each position:
     Old behavior: The latter call was effective; earlier one ignored.
     New behavior: Independent of order, both calls are effective.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2009-06-14 Release 5.0.7

Overview:

This is the current stable release of PHPlot. The release adds one new
feature, fixes a few bugs, and changes the license under which PHPlot
is released.

The PHPlot reference manual has been updated to match this release.  The
manual is available as a separate download from Sourceforge. The manual is
also now available for on-line viewing at http://phplot.sourceforge.net

See the ChangeLog file for more about changes and bug fixes.


Licensing:

PHPlot is now released on the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
License, version 2.1. (Previous versions of PHPlot were released under
a dual "PHP/GPL" license.) The licensing change was authorized by the
original author and copyright holder of PHPlot.


New feature in 5.0.7:

+ Plot area margins can now be partially specified, using either
  SetMarginsPixels or SetPlotAreaPixels. In previous releases of
  PHPlot you had to either specify all 4 margins or none.
  Credit to adoll for this feature.


Visible Changes and Possible Incompatibilities:

+ Y data range can change:
  As a result of the bug fixes in this release, automatically-calculated
  Y data ranges can change. If you have missing Y values in your data,
  and you let PHPlot calculate the Y data range (that is, you do not
  call SetPlotAreaWorld with a Ymin value), then the lower limit for Y
  can change. If you have a plot with data-data-error data type, different
  error values for different points, and let PHPlot calculate the Y data
  range, then either Y limit can change.


Bug Fixes in 5.0.7:


+ Fix for bug 2803900: SetRGBArray('large') does not work:
  Corrected an array name usage problem. You can now select the large
  color map. Also PHPlot no longer overrides use of the PHP include
  path when loading the large color map, and now reports an error if the
  file is needed and not found.

+ Fix for bug 2791502 "Error plots treat missing Y values as 0":
  Missing Y values now with with data-data-error plots.

+ Fix for bug 2792860 "Wrong DataLabelLines with missing Y":
  Data label lines are now suppressed at missing Y values.

+ Fix for bug 2786350 "Missing Y data results in bad auto-range":
  Missing Y values are now ignored when calculating the Y data range.
  Bug report and analysis by mrten.

+ Fix for bug 2786354 "Incorrect auto-range for data-data-error":
  The Y data range is now correctly calculated for data-data-error plots
  when the error values differ from point to point.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2009-01-20 Release 5.0.6

Overview:

This is the current stable release of PHPlot. The purpose of this release
is to fix additional problems with text spacing and positioning, and
introduce some minor new features.

The PHPlot reference manual has been updated to match this release.  The
manual is available as a separate download from Sourceforge. The manual is
also now available for on-line viewing at http://phplot.sourceforge.net


New features in 5.0.6:

+ Allow mixing GD and TrueType font text on the same plot
  You can use the new method functions SetFontGD() and SetFontTTF() to
  select a font and font type for text element (labels, titles, etc.) For
  example, you can have TrueType plot titles, and GD-fixed font labels.
  SetUseTTF() now sets the default text type, TTF or GD. This is fully
  backward compatible.

+ Extended label formatting
  See the reference manual for more information on these.

  New label formatting types are added: 'printf' (using a user-defined
  format), and 'custom' (using a callback function).

  For 'data' type formatting, a prefix and suffix can be added. (PHPlot
  previously had an undocumented suffix for 'data' type, which still
  works.)

  For 'time' formatting, the format can now be specified in the same function
  call rather than using SetXTimeFormat and SetYTimeFormat.

  For 'data' formatting, the precision can now be specified in the same
  function call, rather than using SetPrecisionX and SetPrecisionY.

+ Better control over line spacing in multi-line labels

  Line spacing can now be set separately for each text element using an
  additional argument to SetFont, SetFontGD, and SetFontTTF.  The overall
  SetLineSpacing() value is the default for each text element that does not
  have a specific line spacing set.

  PHPlot now interprets the value set for line spacing as the number of
  pixels only for GD text. For TrueType text, it is a scale factor for the
  font's built-in line spacing for TrueType text. The equation used is:
      interline_spacing = line_spacing * font_natural_spacing / 6
  where line_spacing is either the global value set with SetLineSpacing
  or a more specific value set with SetFont(), and font_natural_spacing
  is the amount of space between lines built-in to the TrueType font. The
  factor 6 should really be 4 (since PHPlot always used 4 as the default
  line_spacing, this would give the natural font spacing by default). But
  the text is too widely spaced with this value, and 6 was chosen to be
  more compatible for typical font sizes.

Visible Changes and Possible Incompatibilities:

+ Line spacing
  Multi-line TrueType titles and labels will have different inter-line
  spacing. Since the text size affects the margin and plot area sizes,
  this results in slightly different sized features on any plot with
  multi-line TrueType text.
  Previous versions of PHPlot used a default 4 pixels for inter-line
  spacing of multi-line TrueType text, regardless of the font size.
  PHPlot now uses the 'natural' font inter-line spacing, adjusted by a line
  spacing parameter (per text type, with a global default).

  The same change can also increase the size of the legend box slightly.

+ Internal changes were made to the way font information is stored. Anything
  that directly references PHPlot internals regarding fonts will break. Usage
  also changed for the internal functions to size and draw text (ProcessText*,
  SizeText*) due to font data storage changes.

+ Changes were made to internal class variables used to store label
  formatting information. Anything relying on these internals may break.


Bug Fixes in 5.0.6:

#1932571: Data-Data Plot fails with same X values
  PHPlot will no longer hang if all X values are the same. But this is
  interim fix to force the X range to 1 to prevent the hang. Eventually,
  smarter automatic range code will handle this better.
  Credit to andyl for finding this.

#1891636: Misaligned TTF X Labels
  PHPlot will now correctly line-up TrueType labels along the X axis. There
  were small but very noticeable errors before, when the text had descenders
  or lines with all short letters.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2008-01-13 Released 5.0.5

Overview:

This is the current stable release of PHPlot. The emphasis of this release
is to improve text positioning, margin calculation, and error handling.

Although this is considered a stable release, it has a large amount
of changed code compared to the previous release 5.0.4. Two of the more
complex components of PHPlot - text and margin calculations - were mostly
re-written in this release. You are advised to carefully test your own
applications with PHPlot-5.0.5 to see how your plots look. Refer to the
README.txt file included in the release for information on reporting problems.

Starting with this release, PHPlot no longer supports PHP4, since the PHP
group officially declared end-of-life for PHP4 as of 31 December 2007.
PHPlot-5.0.5 was tested only with PHP-5.2.5 and we are unlikely to address
any issues using PHPlot with older versions of PHP.

The PHPlot reference manual has been updated to match this release.  The
manual is available as a separate download from Sourceforge. The manual is
now also now available for on-line viewing at http://phplot.sourceforge.net

The callback feature added in 5.0.4 is now documented in the reference
manual. It is still considered experimental and subject to change, however.



Visible Changes and Possible Incompatibilities:

+ Dropped support for PHP4.

+ Eliminated remaining order-dependent behavior related to margins and
text. PHPlot should now do nothing at all, except record parameters, until
you draw the graph with DrawGraph. I believe this was always the intended
behavior of PHPlot, but over time perhaps various pre-calculations and
dependencies crept in. Fixing this simplifies processing and should lead to
more consistent behavior.

+ The rewritten margin calculation code now uses actual sizes of all tick
and data labels and tick marks, rather than guesses. Margins collapse to
remove unused elements, but a minimum margin (currently fixed at 15 pixels)
is applied so the plot edges don't get to close to the image edges. The
result is that most graphs with auto-calculated margins will change in
appearance. It most cases, the margins get slightly smaller. In other
cases, earlier releases mis-calculated the margins, so this release will
produce much neater margins.

+ The X and Y titles are now offset out from the plot area, not in from the
image area.  For auto-calculated margins this should not make any
difference, but if you use SetMarginsPixels or SetPlotAreaPixels to set
larger margins, the axis titles will move in closer to the plot with this
release.

+ Changes were made to PHPlot internals, including removal of some class
variables and functions, and addition of new variables and functions.
These are documented in the ChangeLog. Relying on any internal variables
or functions in an application using PHPlot is unwise. The following
internal functions were removed:
     SetImageArea() DrawDotSeries() DrawLineSeries() CalcXHeights()
     CalcYWidths() DrawLabels() InitImage() DrawDashedLine()
         These were marked 'deprecated', were undocumented and unmaintained.
     TTFBBoxSize()
         This was replaced with SizeText().

+ Line spacing set with SetLineSpacing() now affects TTF text as well as
GD text. Previously, it only affected GD text. The default line spacing
happens to be usable for TTF text.

+ Changes were made to error handling. PHPlot will now trigger a user-level
error after producing an error image, instead of exiting.  If no error
handler has been set, it will exit, as before. But now the error message
should also get logged, or written to the standard error stream, depending
on the SAPI in use.  You can now establish an error handler to catch most
PHPlot errors and do some cleanup before exit.

+ PHPlot no longer accepts some invalid option values (such as a substring
of a valid value, or empty strings) passed to functions. If your
application aborts in CheckOption with PHPlot-5.0.5 but 'worked' with
previous releases, them you were probably using an invalid option value.



Bug Fixes in 5.0.5:

#945439: x_tick_label_height not set correctly
  Exact sizes of labels are now used to calculate margins.

#1813070: Bad position for multi-line TrueType text
  Fixed as part of text functions rewrite. Use correct basepoint
  (lower left of each line) when positioning text lines.

#1813071: Wrong title height for multi-line TTF text
  Fixed as part of text functions rewrite: calculate height of
  multi-line text correctly. Also now uses the line-spacing setting.

#1813474: DrawText alignment arguments wrong
  Fixed so 'top' and 'bottom' now have the usual meaning: top means
  align top of text with reference, bottom means align bottom of text.
  This was switched before. Changed every internal caller to compensate.

#1816844: Fix order dependency for setting titles
  Defer processing of title strings until DrawGraph(),
  so it doesn't matter if fonts, etc. are set before or after.

#1819668: Horiz. align multi-line text: GD vs TTF
  The text functions were rewritten to draw TTF text line-by-line,
  like GD text, and correctly align each line.

#1823774: Default Font Path and Error Message
  Error handling has been improved to make sure a message is logged, in
  addition to the error image, and use error_trigger rather than exit.

#1826513: FIXME in DrawLegend: Max label length
  The actual size needed for legend text is now used.

#1827263: Spoiled up pie-chart if $val is close to zero
  Fixed by skipping over any segment that rounds to 0 degrees of
  arc. (The GD function uses integer angles only, and 0 degrees
  means draw a complete circle.)

#1836528: Insufficient checking of parameter values
  Rewrote validator function to reject improper parameter values.

#1843012: Make margins, drawing consistent
  Margin code logic was rewritten and checked for consistency.

#1856207: Margin error with 'xaxis'/'yaxis' position
  Margin space is now allocated for ticks and labels if their position
  is 'xaxis' or 'yaxis' and the axis is at the plot edge. This is not
  a perfect fix (the axis could be close but not at the edge).


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2007-10-20 Released 5.0.4

Overview:

This is the latest stable release of PHPlot. We are abandoning the 'rc'
version naming style, because we don't consider these last releases
'release candidate' versions. As we continue to make changes to PHPlot,
we are not converging toward a final "5.0" release, however we do consider
these releases stable and complete enough for production use.

This release fixes a number of problems and introduces a few new features.

The PHPlot reference manual has also been updated to match this release.
New material has been added documenting some of the PHPlot internals.
The manual is available as a separate download from Sourceforge.


Code Cleanup:

Some code cleanup is going in to this release. It is hoped that these
changes will not impact any existing scripts using PHPlot, but will make
the PHPlot code itself easier to understand and maintain.

PHPlot now avoids making changes outside its own class definition. There
are no longer any functions defined outside the class, nor any constants.
Three constants (MINY MAXY TOTY) were removed, and 2 functions were removed
(see Visible Changes below).  Also PHPlot no longer sets the PHP error
reporting level to E_ALL. Although we highly recommend setting error
reporting to E_ALL in your php.ini file or scripts, it is not right for
PHPlot to assume that you want it.


Visible Changes and Possible Incompatibilities:

Arrays containing color and style information are used with several PHPlot
functions to control the plot style array. These functions are:
    SetPointShapes, SetPointSizes, SetLineWidths, SetLineStyles,
    SetDataColors, SetDataBorderColors, and SetErrorBarColors.
The arrays passed to these functions MUST used sequential integer 0-based
indexes. This is what the PHP manual calls "Usual integer indices (starting
from zero, increasing by one)". This is the type of array you get in PHP by
default if you use array() without specifying key values, or use the
empty-bracket assignment operator to add values onto an array.  In previous
versions of PHPlot, some of these functions would also work with
string-indexed or non-sequentially-indexed arrays, but this was not clearly
defined. Starting with PHPlot-5.0.4, only arrays with "usual integer
indices" work, and other array indexes will cause errors.

Some internal-use-only functions have had their usage changed or been removed.
If you are using functions that are not documented in the PHPlot Function
Reference in the manual, your code may have to be changed.

As part of the code cleanup, two functions which were defined outside the
PHPlot class were removed: array_pad_array(), and array_merge_php4().
If your code used these, you need to fix your code.

The routines which accept a color name, value, or array now check for a valid
color name. If you specify a color name which is not in your current color
table, PHPlot will draw an error and exit. Previously, PHP would report an
index error, continue, and get a 'headers already sent' message.


Bug Fixes in 5.0.4:

#1813021: Miss-positioned right-justified vertical GD text.
  Fixed DrawText() to correctly position 90 degree right-justified text
  drawn in a fixed GD font. This could be seen with 90 degree Y tick labels.

#1790441 Removed destructor/shutdown function, and no longer recommend
  using reference assignment when creating a PHPlot object. This was
  interfering with memory usage.
  Credit to annajilly for analysis.

#1779115 SetLegendWorld() failed because of undefined variables. The
  required order dependency was too hard to meet. This is now fixed.
  You can now use SetLegendWorld anywhere before DrawGraph.

#1726810 (feature request, but actually a bug fix) Ignore empty strings
  as data labels when doing time or data label formatting. These would
  previously produce errors or bad formatting. Now you can omit labels
  as needed even with time and data formatting.
  Credit to exgerhardr for finding this.

#1605555 Y data labels used wrong font and not formatted (bar charts only).

#1208054 Localization of number formatting in 'data' format type. PHPlot
  will attempt to format the numbers in a way appropriate to your locale.
  You can also force the formatting with the new function SetNumberFormat.
  Credit to David Hernández Sanz.

#937944 X/Y Tick counts: PHPlot could draw one two few Y tick counts, and
  one too many X tick counts. This is not a perfect fix, and more work is
  needed here, but this fixes an error case in both X and Y values.


New Features in 5.0.4:

New function SetLegendStyle allows control of the alignment of text and
  color boxes within the legend.  Also allows removing the color boxes.
  Based on bug #1208054.
  Credit to David Hernández Sanz.

New function SetNumberFormat. See bug report #1208054 above.

Callbacks are added. PHPlot can call back your functions while generating the
  plot. This is experimental, and documented only in the file "Callbacks".
  Credit to annajilly for the idea and design.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2006-11-13 Released 5.0rc3

Overview:

This is an interim release. It has been a long time since the previous
release 5.0rc2, and there have been a lot of changes. There are still more
changes likely to go in before we have "5.0", but there are enough for now.

The PHPlot Reference Manual has also been released, and is available as a
separate download from Sourceforge. PHPlot users and developers are
strongly encouraged to read the manual.

This release does not include the "doc/" and "examples/" directories of
previous releases. The Reference Manual contains more complete and
up-to-date information and examples, and I am unable to maintain the doc/
and examples/ files while also maintaining the Reference Manual. If you
need those files, they can be accessed with the Sourceforge web CVS
browser.


New Features:

The emphasis for this release is bug fixing, so there are few new features.

+ You can now suppress lines or points on individual plots in a linepoints
  graph. This feature was added because I needed a graph with several
  linepoints lines, but also with a solid line showing an "80% goal".
  Use SetPointShapes with the value 'none' in the array to suppress the
    point markers for that plot (and only draw the line).
  Use SetLineStyles with the value 'none' in the array to suppress the
    line for that plot (and only draw the point markers).
  [Bug # 1594458]

+ Bar charts can have data labels above the bar with the value. Turn
  these on with SetYDataLabelPos('plotin'). This is somewhat experimental,
  since there isn't a lot of room for labels on top of the bars and you
  may find the results are not useful.


Visible Changes:

Here are the more significant changes in this release. These are changes
which may affect existing scripts and output from PHPlot.  See the
ChangeLog file for information about all changes and bug fixes.

+ A bug fix on bar chart bar borders results in black borders around the
  bars if shading is turned off. The border was previously covered up,
  but was supposed to be there. If you need borderless, unshaded bars,
  you need to use SetDataBorderColors to make the borders the same colors
  as the bars. [Bug # 1096197]

+ TrueType font pathname handling was fixed. You no longer need to use
  SetUseTTF(True). You can either use full paths to the font files with
  SetDefaultTTFont() and SetFont(), or you can call SetTTFPath() to point
  to a directory of font files, and then use simple font filenames without
  paths in SetDefaultTTFont() and SetFont().
  [Bug # 1144644 plus several others]

+ There have been several fixes regarding automatically calculated ranges
  and scales. The result is that you may see less extra space and fewer
  tick marks in some cases.

+ A fix was made to bar and stackedbar graph bar widths in order to get
  the X axis labels to properly center. As part of the fix, the bar widths
  now match between the two graph types. (Before this fix, the bars were
  narrower in bar graphs compared to the same data plotted as a stacked
  bar.) As a result, bar graph bars will now be drawn with wider bars, and
  stackedbar graph bars will be narrower. You can adjust this with the new
  class variable bar_extra_space.     [Bug # 1437912]

+ Dot shapes and sizes were off by 1 or 2 slots in the array of shapes or
  sizes. After the fix, you may get different dot shapes or sizes per
  plot line. [Bug # 1096194]


Testing:
 
Since its output is visual (graphics), and it has so many interconnected
modes and options, PHPlot is difficult to test. But at least we are now
trying. I have a collection of PHPlot scripts (currently about 60) and a
script to run through them. The script automatically checks that:
    1) Nothing was written to the standard error stream;
    2) An image file of size greater than 0 was written;
    3) Neither the test script nor PHPlot did exit(). This catches cases
       where PHPlot aborts with DrawError().

The automated test is an easy way to check for serious regression, but you
really need to inspect the output files to validate PHPlot. This takes a
little time, and it is easy to overlook problems.

The real issue is test coverage. Just as we can be sure that future
PHPlot releases will pass the test collection, we can also be sure that
future bug reports will be written against untested cases.

--------------------

2006-11-08 PHPlot on Sourceforge has a new maintainer: lbayuk

--------------------

2004-10-24 Released 5.0rc2

--------------------

