some remarks due to mailing list discussions

[PyX/mjg.git] / CHANGES

PyX

TODO:
  - normpath module:
  - style module:
    - make dash length available
  - text module:
    - SlantFont & Co support
    - keep an eye on PEP 324 (popen 5): it could make the texrunner much easier
  - graph.graph module
    - common bboxes for different graphs
    - 3d graphs, circular graphs
    - axis painter labelattrs=None + automatic axis partitioning leads to no valid partitioning
    - when all titles are None, a graph key currently raises an exception
    - translatecanvas should be the default in graph.style.symbol
  - graph.style and graph.data modules
    - fix docu of gridattrs functionality of axis painters
      (how can one, e.g. draw a grid at the ticks and not at the subticks)
    - make graph.style.symbol.diamond a graph.style.symbol instance (to be discussed)
  - graph.data module:
    - use csv module (new in 2.3)
    - Check for "inf" and "nan" in datafiles.
      (When plotted, the graph does not complain, but the output will be broken;
      this depends on the plattform and is not only an issue within the graph system)
  - graph.style module:
    - add styles using curves instead of lines
    - histogram doesn't stroke lines to the baseline for steps=0 when two subsequent values are equal
  - canvas module:
    - contructor should only take a texrunner keyword argument
    - set method???
    - SVG support
    - stroking of patterns does not work in PDF
    - patterns call the outputPS method in registerPS and have no writer at that 
      time -> rewrite this code
  - style and color module:
    - support modification of existing styles via __call__
  - bbox module:
    - height -> getheight, ...
  - dvifile module:
    - support single-character mode
  - color module:
    - palette: are the min and max parameters really needed or shouldn't we just assume
      that param lies within the range [0,1]. Note that when using a predefined palette (which
      is the common use case), they will be 0 and 1, anyway.
  - deformer module:
    - move helper path routines to some more generic place for paths?
  - open discussion:
    - clearly distingish between readers and writers. dvifile, epsfile, etc. might
      be renamed to dvireader, epsreader ...
    - support gsave and grestore in some way to make context handling easier?
  - ps/pdfwriters:
    - support colorspace argument (like c.writeEPSfile("bla", colorspace="cmyk"))

  Documentation:
    - path module:
      - describe + vs <<
      - more details in path constructor: allowed pathels, first pathel...
      - set method
    - pattern module:
      - check and update
    - graphics section:
      Changeable attributes should be explained at a central place.
    - box module:
      - linealign and circlealign
      - need to be redone anyway
    - graph module:
      styles: document what data name the styles accept (require). Try also to be more
      userfriendly and not to describe immediately the internals of the implementation:
      (see e.g. class.style.symbol)
    - include the deformer docu somewhere in path

  FAQ:
    - describe creation and modification (inplace and ``modify by new'') of
      graph data


TODO for 0.9:
  - text module:
    - add encoding; check whether encoding=ascii works well for the common existing cases
    - we need output-specific map files (see Palatino example
      http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=14863643)


0.9 (2006/??/??):
  - most important changes (to be included in the release notes):
    - mathtree removal (warning about integer division)
    - barpos style does not build tuples for nestedbar axes automatically
  - font modules:
    - new framework for font handling
    - own implementation of type1 font stripping (old pdftex code fragments removed)
    - complete type1 font command representation and glyph path extraction from font programs
    - t1code extension module (C version of de-/encoding routines used in Type 1 font files)
    - AFM file parser
  - graph modules:
    - data module:
      - mathtree removal: more flexibility due to true python expressions
      - default style instantiation bug (reported by Gregory Novak)
    - style module:
      - automatic subaxis tuple creation removed in barpos (create tuples
        in expressions now; subnames argument removed since it became pointless;
        adujstaxis became independend from selectstyle for all styles now)
      - remove multiple painting of frompath in histogram and barpos styles
    - graph, axis and style module:
      - support for mutual linking of axes between graphs
        (TODO: documentation, basically the setlinkedaxis method)
      - new domethods dependency handling
      - separate axis range calculation from dolayout
    - axis.parter module:
      - linear and logarthmic partitioners always need lists now
        (as it was documented all the time; renamed tickdist/labeldist
        to tickdists/labeldists; renamed tickpos/labelpos to
        tickpreexps/labelpreexps)
    - axis module:
      - patch to tickpos and vtickpos (reported by Wojciech Smigaj, cf. patch #1286112)
      - anchoredpathaxis added (suggested by Wojciech Smigaj)
    - painter module:
      - patch to allow for tickattrs=None (reported by Wojciech Smigaj, cf. patch #1286116)
  - color module:
    - transparency support (PDF only) (TODO: documentation)
    - conversion between colorspaces
    - nonlinear palettes added
    - the former palette must now be initialized as linearpalette
  - text module:
    - improve escapestring to handle all ascii characters
    - correct vshift when text size is modified by a text.size instance
    - recover from exceptions (reported by Alan Isaac)
    - handle missing italic angle information in tfm for pdf output (reported by Brett Calcott)
    - allow for .def and .fd files in texmessage.loaddef (new name for
      texmessage.loadfd, which was restricted to .fd files)
  - path module:
    - correct closepath (do not invalidate currentpoint but set it to the
      beginning of the current subpath); structural rework of pathitems
    - calculate real bboxes for Bezier curves
    - fix intersection due to non-linear parametrization of bezier curves
    - add rotate methods to path, normpath, normsubpath, and normsubpathitems
    - add flushskippedline to normsubpath
    - add arclentoparam to normsubpath and normsubpathitems
  - normpath module:
    - contains normpath, normsubpath and normpathparam which have originally
      been in the path module
    - return "invalid" for certain path operations when the curve "speed" is
      below a certain threshold
  - deformer module:
    - rewritten smoother to make use of the subnormpath facilities
    - rewritten parallel for arbitrary paths
    - TODO: missing numeric fallback in helper
  - deco module:
    - add basic text decorator (TODO: documentation)
    - allow arrows at arbitrary positions along the path (TODO: check documentation)
  - connector module:
    - boxdists parameter need to be a list/tuple of two items now
    - changed the orientation of the angle parameters
  - trafo module:
    - renamed _apply to apply_pt
    - introduce _epsilon for checking the singularity of a trafo
  - epsfile module:
    - use rectclip instead of clip to remove the clipping path from the
      PostScript stack, which otherwise might create strange effects for
      certain PostScript files (reported by Gert Ingold)
  - helper module:
    - remove nodefault marker in favour of separate _marker classes
    - add some linear algebra functions
  - dvifile module:
    - silently ignore TrueType fonts in font mapping files (reported by Gabriel Vasseur)
  - type1font module:
    - accept [ and ] as separators in encoding files (reported by Mojca Miklavec, cf. bug #1429524)

0.8.1 (2005/08/13):
  - deco module:
    - fix bug in postscript deco code for stroking only attributes
  - path module:
    - fix multicurveto._normalized
    - fix path.paramtoarclen and path.paramtoarclen_pt 
    - remove unused method-local function
    - fix linestyle rellength in PostScript
    - correction to the rounding problems in circles (reported by Uwe Fabricius)
  - epsfile module:
    - fix a typo
  - pattern module:
    - issue a warning when not using a stroke color for patterns
  - text module:
    - postpone PDFfontdescriptor information, since it raises an error on certain
      fonts even when PostScript output was requested (reported by Gert Ingold)
    - remove spurious spaces when checking for empty texmessages
  - kpathsea module:
    - caching in fallback to lower system call bottleneck
  - canvas module:
    - add missing writePSfile wrapper
    - add *args to writeEPSfile and writePDFfile wrappers
  - writer modules:
    - writebbox option to write bbox information (disabled by default)
      even when a paper format is specified (PS and PDF writers only)
  - use arclen in spring example
  - add knot example
  - use pdf graphic files for pdf version of the manual
  - use PyX to create tipa fallbacks for FAQ
  - correct description regarding the manual in the README file


0.8 (2005/07/13):
  - changed requirements to python 2.1 or newer:
    - nested scopes are needed without fallback solution by the path module
      (at other places fallback solutions for missing nested scopes are missing as well)
    - use warning module for warnings
  - path module:
    - path parameters and argument handling
    - the arct to arc/arcn conversion (needed for bbox calculation and for conversion into
      normpath) has been fixed
  - document module: new
    - container classes for document and pages
    - document.paperformat class (strings are deprecated)
  - canvas module:
    - writeEPSfile wraps a canvas in a single page document and performs the output
  - bbox module:
    - add _pt methods
  - pdfwriter module:
    - completely rewritten: support for fonts and patterns has been added
  - pswriter module: new
    - separate PS output from canvas
    - new signature of outputPS methods: writer and context are passed as additional
      arguments
  - color module:
    - allow selection on zero range palette (reported by Francisco Borges, cf. bug #1116257)
  - prolog module: removed due to code reorganisation
  - graph modules:
    - modifications on __init__.py in graph and axis subdirectories to
      make "from pyx.graph import *" working as expected
    - graph styles:
      - addontop added to stackedbarpos
      - column -> columnname renaming where appropriate
      - histogram style added
    - graph data:
      - function needs explicit variable definition (implicit variable definition is deprecated)
      - column names are inherited by data.data() except when copy=0;
        unused columns are silently ignored now
      - dynamic function data on a logarithmic axis uses isinstance check now
        (although it removes the only (mis)use of axis.inverse, it is a
        temporary solution only)
    - graph key:
      - extend graph keys to allow for several columns
    - axis data handling refactoring:
      - introcuded an axis positioner (module graph.axis.positioner)
      - introduced anchoredaxis to make axis data and positioning local to a graph
      - linkedaxis is a special version of anchoredaxis and is generic
        (it uses the new linkpainter provided by an axis)
      - unification of split and bar axes;
        removed some black magic in baraxis in favor of a nestedbar axis
      - x linked to x2 etc. is now possible
      - axis.inverse was removed (the only place it was (mis)used was by a function)
    - graphxy:
      - allow to transform axis after layout
      - [xy]axisat arguments in the constructor to easily move [xy]-axes
        to a position defined the orthogonal axis
      - remove axispos (use the axis dictionary now, since it now contains
        anchored axis instances and those have shortcuts for the axis positioner
        methods)
  - dvifile:
    - tfm->dvi conversion rounding bugfix
    - fix parsing of empty strings ("") in fontmap files (reported by John Owens, bug #1218983)
  - text module:
    - support for halign of boxes and content of boxes (see halign example)
    - take units xscale into account in parbox
    - messageparser for replaced fontsizes: Warning -> implemented by texmessage.fontwarning
    - messageparser for size differences at the end: Warning not Exception -> implemented by texmessage.fontwarning
    - messageparser for overfull/underfull vbox/hbox: Warning not Exception -> implemented by texmessage.boxwarning
    - dvicopy flag removed
    - allow argument of set to be None
    - rename nomathmode and nophantom to clearmathmode and clearphantom
    - texmessagepattern for easy creation of simple TeX message parsers
    - allow long file names in file checking TeX message parsers
    - no newline removal to not disturbe TeX messages when reporting errors
    - reworked documentation to use the python documentation standards
  - style module:
    - linewidth is no longer a unit.length subclass but expects a such as first argument
  - epsfile module:
    - correct EOL handling while reading DSC's (reported by Markus Meyer)
  - pattern module: new
    - moved canvas.pattern to its own module together with the new PDFpattern class
    - add some default patterns: hatched and crosshatched
  - deformer module:
    - improve the smoothing deformer
    - add a parallel deformer
  - tex module:
    - the very old tex module finally got removed completely
  - contrib directory:
    - a simple converter from dvi to EPS/PS/PDF files (dviconvert.py) has been added
    - a simple imagine to EPS/PS/PDF converter (imgconvert.py) has been added
    - a simple dvitype.py has been added
  - update address of FSF all over the place


0.7.1 (2004/12/15):
  - canvas module:
    - EPS header fixed (reported by Russell Lang, cf. bug #1065099)
  - Makefile fixes:
    - use CURDIR instead of PWD (reported by David M. Cooke, bug #1070285)
  - pykpathsea module:
    - support windows line endings (patch by Hans-Andreas Engel, cf. bug #1071160)
  - graph modules:
    - line attributes handling fixed (reported by Andrea Riciputi)
    - fix typos in predefined symbols (reported by Andrea Riciputi)
    - cut column name list at the max. number of columns (reported by Arnd Baecker)
  - examples:
    - add INDEX and README files to distribution
    - new errorbar and julia example
  - faq:
    - pdf snippets for tipa based phonetic transliterations


0.7 (2004/10/21):
  - bitmap module:
    - new module for inclusion of bitmap images
  - path module:
    - names of local and member variables now follow the naming convention of
      having a _pt suffix when containing lengths in points
  - bbox module:
    - names of local and member variables now follow the naming convention of
      having a _pt suffix when containing lengths in points
    - enlarge was misspelled as enlarged
    - renamed _bbox -> bbox_pt
    - new bbox method center, which returns the coordinates of the center
      of the bbox
    - enlarge and enlarged do no longer interprete unqualified lengths as
      being of type visual
  - unit module:
    - unit.cm, unit.t_cm, etc. are no longer sub classes but instances
      of length
    - never convert implicitly into visual/width, etc. lengths (this is more
      about usage of the unit module in various other modules) (TODO: update
      documentation)
    - support for string initialization removed
    - support for initialisation with other length removed
    - lengths can now be divided by other lengths (as suggested by Michael Gruber
      and Magnus Lie Hetland)
  - text module:
    - postpone reading of fontmap files until TeX/LaTeX is started
    - sign of font number in dvifile (reported by Michael Gruber)
    - phantom attribute
  - canvas module:
    - added new classes page and document for multipage PostScript output
    - apply deformers (instead of trafos) in draw method
  - style module:
    - decrease interval for dotted and dash-dotted lines for better visual
      appearance
  - setup.py and distribution:
    - create siteconfig on install to store positions of the shared data
      and the global pyxrc
  - graph modules:
    - graph style + data reorganization
      - modularization of the graph styles by separating data handling and drawing tasks
      - several graph styles can now be combined together
      - graph data can internally now combine different data sources
        (by that, some nasty side effects could have been removed)
    - enum -> num renaming
    - allow for horizontally and vertically centered graph key alignment and a key background
    - fix bug that graph was not finished automatically when a bbox was specified
      manually (reported by David Barton)
  - path module:
    - pathel -> pathitem, etc. renaming
    - methods accepting a parameter value / arc length now also allow the user to 
      pass a tuple (subpath, param) / (subpath, arclen)
    - normpath constructor no longer accepts a path or normpath as argument but only a list
      of normsubpaths. Use the new normpath method of the path instead to construct a normpath
      from a path.
    - normsubpath can now deal with short (i.e. shorter than epsilon) segments correctly
    - the intersect and split methods of normpath and normsubpath have been completely rewritten and
      now take the accuracy epsilon correctly into account. Note that for a closed subpath the
      split function now returns the segment containing the closing point as first element
      in the result list (before, it was returned as last element).
    - normsubpathitems and normsubpath now implement much more methods also provided by
      path and normpath instances
    - normpath.append no longer accepts pathitems but only normsubpaths
  - deformer module: new
    - moved cycloid and smoothed from deco into deformer
  - bbox module:
    - handle "BoundingBox: (atend)" (cf. bug #945621 reported by Jim Boyle)
    - kpsearch option to search for file using the kpathsea library (contributed by Michael Gruber)
  - base module:
    - PSCmd and PSOp are now joined in a new class canvasitem
  - deco module: 
    - decorated path no longer allows modification of its path
    - new method excluderange which allows to remove certain parameter ranges from the stroked path
    - additional canvas provided by decorated path is now called ornaments
    - constriction=None now indicates an arrowhead without constriction
  - trafo module:
    - trafos are now deformers
  - examples:
    - a bunch of bargraph examples have been added


0.6.x (????/??/??):
   - graph/axis module:
     - fix errorbar range adjustment
     - fix empty tick lists bug (reported by Marko Vendelin, cf. bug #977323)
   - graph/style module:
     - symbolline drawing order in graph key (cf. bug #990687)
   - graph/data module:
     - access to builtin list (reported by Marcus Mendenhall, cf. bug #1042458)


0.6.3 (2004/04/27):
   - graph module:
     - fix drawing with background
     - fix insertion of a zero length path when the whole line is outside
       the valid axis range (reported by Marko Vendelin)
   - distribution:
     - include source for faq and manual
     - distribute the pdf instead of postscript (manual, faq, examples)


0.6.2 (2004/04/07):
  - graph module:
    - fixed title=None + graph key issue reported by Gabriel Vasseur
    - graph.axis.painter.plain -> graph.axis.painter.regular
      (as it was in parts of the documentation already)
    - changeable-gridattrs-become-None-bug fixed
    - graph style cutting outside lines (double-)fixed


0.6.1 (2004/03/31):
  - fixes missing install of the graph and axis directories introduced in 0.6
  - some minor updates to the faq


0.6 (2004/03/30):
  - graph module:
    - reorganisation of the graph structure finished (there might be some
      small pending issues, but the basic restructuring is done with this release):
      - graph splitted into several modules in pyx/graph and pyx/graph/axis
      - painters are using the new attribute scheme including changeable
        attributes
      - graph styles rewrite
      - graph data rewrite
    - axis zeropath feature has been removed
    - mergelabels removed; linpart doesn't have a label argument anymore
    - names and texts removed from baraxis
    - iteration on graph style, when it is used several times in the same graph
    - symbols + lines -> symbollines; symbols do not allow setting lineattrs,
      and lines not symbolattrs
    - manual line clipping (do not include unneeded line segments when the
      axis range is set manually etc.)
    - automatic file key titles
    - graph.data now also includes the old data module
    - data.list adds (by default) a line number like data.file
      (thus regular columns are counted from 1)
  - path:
    - added new pathels multilineto_pt and multicurveto which allows to specify
      a list of points and can thus be much more efficient
    - internal methods return coordinates in pts
    - arclentoparam returns only parameters not total length
    - added path.arclength_pt, path.at_pt, path.begin_pt, path.end_pt (and
      correspondingly for normpath)
    - complete refactoring of the normpath class: normpaths now consist of
      normsubpaths which themselves consist of normlines and normcurves This is
      much more convenient for any routines working with normpaths.
    - reversing of closed sub paths does not change the first point of the sub
      path
    - renamed: arclength -> arclen
    - renamed: lentopar -> arclentoparam
    - renamed: glue -> joined
    - normpath now supports join, the in-place version of joined
    - path and normpath method raise exception instead of returning None
      when parameter is out of range
    - the accuracy epsilon can now only be specified in normpath and normsubpath
      constructor and no longer in arguments of path and normpath methods
    - negative parameters are no longer supported in path and normpath methods
    - path and normpath methods which accept parameter value param now
      alternatively accept an arc length
  - deco module:
    - cycloid decorator
    - smoothed decorator
    - arrow heads are no longer stroked (as suggested by Magnus Lie Hetland)
  - canvas:
    - writeEPSfile deprecates writetofile
    - internally, write methods are renamed in outputPS
    - canvas constructor no longer accepts variable argument list but
      expects a list of attrs as first argument (defaulting to []) and
      a texrunner as second argument (defaulting to text.defaulttexrunner)
    - set, draw, stroke and fill no longer return self, i.e., the canvas, but None
  - bbox module:
     - added inplace add (__iadd__), enlarge and transform methods
     - callers use inplace add where possible now (yielding a considerable
       speedup)
    - "undefined" corners of bounding boxes are no longer supported which makes
      the bounding box operations much more efficient.
  - connnector module:
    - renamed _xxx -> xxx_pt
  - epsfile module:
    - removed showbbox argument of epsfile class
  - text module:
    - default handling of texmessages as in the new attribute scheme
    - multiple insert bug fixed
    - made left, right, width, height, depth information available (x length
      not taking into account box transformations)
    - ignore tex message "Please type a command or say `\\end'"
    - added textboxes that are sequentially filled (experimental)
  - examples:
    - mandel.py (contributed by Stephen Phillips)
  - unit module:
    - length comparision (David Beach)
    - x-scale for TeX
    - more unit tests
  - mathtree module:
    - switched to the new parser using pythons parser module
  - data module:
    - removed, it all lives in the graph.data module now, while before it
      was splitted into two separate modules
  - tex module:
    - not imported by default anymore
    - obsolete warning when importing this module

0.5.1 (2004/01/22):
  - distribution:
    - include missing c-files for optional extension modules
  - prolog module:
    - fix unpaired BeginProcSet/EndProcSet in font enconding

0.5 (2004/01/20):
  - setup.py and distribution:
    - allow customization of the extension modules built (via setup.cfg)
    - disable building pykpathsea module by default
    - more detailed description of install process in INSTALL
    - provide more information and pointers to other files in README
    - include example data files in distribution (suggested by Andrea Riciputi)
    - force dvips to write ps files instead of printing them (suggested by Otto Tronarp)
    - includ pyxfaq.pdf in distribution
  - text module:
    - improved is-readable test for lfs files and pyx.def file
    - explicitly quit (La)TeX in cleantmp (helps when quitting with <Ctrl>C)
    - showwaitfortex implemented following a suggestion by Fernando Perez
      (waitfortex is increased to 60 seconds now)
    - support of TeX extension --ipc for reading dvi results while TeX keeps running
    - configurable font mapping files (via pyxrc or parameter of the texrunner constructor)
    - markers to get access to positions within TeX expressions
    - fix: allow for e-tex in texmessage.start (reported by Andrea Riciputi)
    - fix: print warning at syntax errors in font mapping file and continue (cf. bug #795271)
    - remove limitation on number of fonts in dvi file
    - added native virtual font support
    - dvicopy support not needed anymore (it is still available, but obsolete and
      removed from the documentation)
    - do not include too many glyphs in the eps file
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming
  - dvifile module (NEW):
    - separated from the text module
    - dvifile class returns standard pyx canvas instances on readpage
  - graph module:
    - removed manualpart and partitioners mix keyword
    - results of the splitting at "=" in graph.function were not stripped
    - skip title=None in key (cf. bug #821284), properly align a single key entry
    - another (the last?!) axis redesign: axispos -> class of its own
    - some axispos name have changed slightly (zeroline -> zeropath etc.)
    - tick/data-vmin/vmax removed
    - pathaxis
    - linkaxis
    - minor enhancements in exponentionaltexter
    - axes alongs paths including a set of examples
    - mixing a partitioner and manual ticks by two distinct keyword arguments now
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming
    - part -> parter renaming
  - canvas module:
    - stroke, fill, draw, set and insert do no longer accept variable length argument lists but
      an attribute list as last argument
    - stroke and fill now support trafos (TODO: documentation)
    - uppercase version of a4, a3, ... paperformats
  - config module:
    - new module for loading PyX configuration information
  - pyx module:
    - automatically import main modules into pyx namespace as suggested by Fernando 
      Perez.
  - path module:
    - check for sorting of parameter list passed to path.split method
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming
  - deco module (NEW): 
    - contains decoratedpath and decorators from canvas module
    - all predefined decorators are instances now (deco.stroked is thus ok) and 
      attributes have to be passed explicitely, e.g., deco.earrow.small(attrs=color.rgb.red) 
      and deco.stroked([color.rgb.blue])
  - style module (NEW):
    - contains all line- and fillstyles which formerly had been defined in the canvas module
    - dash now supports relative dash lengths (as suggested by Otto Tronarp)
  - mathtree module:
    - fixed incorrect handling of - (for instance -x**2 was not negative)
  - attrlist module:
    - contents have been moved to the (obsolete) tex module, which was the only user anyhow, and
      the module itself was removed
  - t1strip module:
    - new fallback solution in pure python
    - bugfix: pyxadapt.h needs to open files binary under Windows (reported by Gary Pajer)
  - box module:
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming
  - trafo module:
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming

0.4.1 (2003/09/17):
  - canvas module:
    - "in" to "inch" in paperformats
  - text module:
    - fix pyx.def hack occuring whenever \ProcessOptions* was used by a package
  - pykpathsea module:
    - implement different file formats for Python version of module
  - t1strip module:
    - python fallback solution should behave the same way as c extension module (closes SF bug #799182 reported
      by Marcus Mendenhall)
  - __init__.py:
    - added "connector" to __all__

0.4 (2003/08/22):
  - graph module:
    - separate texter out of the axispainter
    - axis/partitioner/texter/painter/axispos redesign & interfaces
    - tick.text is renamed to tick.label
    - ticks and labels are renamed to tickpos/tickdist and labelpos/labeldist in partitioning
    - ticks can be used in the part to mix a partitioner with some manual ticks
      -> manualpart and the mix technique is not needed anymore
         (both things are still available and working, but they will be removed in the future)
    - _ensurefrac is implemented inside the frac constructor now; initialization is possible by:
      - a (enum, denom) tuple now (previously there were two arguments)
      - a string (as before via _ensurefrac)
      - exponential strings are allowed as well (e.g. "1e10" etc.)
      - a float (precision is determined by floatprecision -- the number of decimal places)
    - dense -> density
    - axis.maxworse
    - axis interface
  - text module:
    - reset() method for the texrunner
    - automatic restart of a TeX instance with the same preamble (preamble changes are not possible)
    - texmessage.loadfd for accepting font description loading
    - don't bail out on width_index == 0, but mark character invalid instead
    - dvicopy flag
    - support for specials; pyxgraphics flag
    - support psfonts.map: font names, font encodings
    - bugfix \def\ProcessPyXBox -> \long\def\ProcessPyXBox
    - improved lfs handling
  - data module:
    - full documentation via doc strings
  - connector module:
    - some preliminary version
  - box module:
    - multiple radii (up to two per point) and softnesses
    - ensurecenter added --- do we always force the creation of a center?
  - path module:
    - lentopar methods added including some tests
  - epsfile module:
    - new parameter bbox allows to override the bounding box of the eps file

  bugfixes:
  - text module:
    - derive TFMError and DVIError correctly from exceptions.Exception
    - close files and pipes, if they are no longer used (thanks to Marcus Mendenhall)
    - remove DeprecationWarning in Python 2.3 (thanks to Marcus Mendenhall)
  - box module:
    - correct rounding algorithm (Michael Schindler)
  - graph module:
    - refer to the graphs texrunner instead of the defaulttexrunner (cf. #728209)
    - rounding towards zero bugfix in autolinpart
    - log axis range rating bugfix
  - mathtree module:
    - addarg bugs (#738724)
  - epsfile module:
    - fix mixing up of height and width in scale calculation
  - and various other fixer here and there

0.3.1 (2003/04/04):
  - text module:
    - fix bug in dvi rule code where width was height
    - fix preamble attribute checking bug
    - fix texmessage.load pattern search instead of pattern match bug
    - renamed vbox to parbox (was done in 0.3 partially only)
  - data module:
    - allow for tuples in arguments of the data class
    - convenience: exchanged order of named parameters in data.data
  - graph module:
    - convenience: allow for part=None in _axis (base of linaxis and logaxis)
  - examples:
    - added a latex example (requested)
    - added a attributechange example (requested)
    - added back the integral example (requested; prior PyX 0.3 it was part of the user manual)
    - small change in vector example (allow for the access to the texrunner)
    - examples included in source distribution
  - canvas module:
    - correct arrow template calculation for very short paths

0.3 (2003/03/31):
  - examples
    - new easy to use example generation (will hopefully lead to nice examples)
  - unit box:
    - new module for handling of convex polygons (taken out of the graph module)
  - unit helper:
    - new module containing a collection of helper functions (taken out of the graph module)
    - moved the attrlist into helper -- as plain functions; attrlist becomes obsolete
  - text module:
    - new module: a new and preferable integration of TeX/LaTeX
  - t1strip module:
    - strip glyphs from pfa/pfb-fonts
    - there is a C implementation taken from pdftex
    - fallback solution via an external program (pfb2pfa)
  - pykpathsea module:
    - (partial) C binding to libkpathsea
    - fallback solution via an external program (kpsewhich)
  - graph module:
    - removed some code duplication (various axis painters)
    - use text module instead of the obsolete tex module
    - allow for tailing zeros of automatic generated labels
    - allow for missing data in bar graphs -> skipmissing parameter
    - remove the support for variables given as keyword arguments in data constructor
    - use context instead of extern for extern variables and functions
    - graph keys; titles in data/function/etc.
  - unit module:
    - new classes for visual and width lengths, aliases for user length (u_pt = pt)
    - all length classes have now by default a quantifier 1 (instead of 0), such that,
      for instance, 5*unit.t_cm() == unit.t_cm(5)
    - default_unit now has to be set via unit.set. For instance: unit.set(defaultunit="m").
    - convert_to is now an internal function, which moreover does not longer accept tuples or lists
  - bbox module:
    - new class _bbox (the former bbox) which accepts points in the constructor. This is used
      for internal purposes.
    - the bbox constructor now accepts user lengths in the constructor.
    - new methods height, width, top, bottom, left, right
    - ll & ur ???, what about ul and lr -> ugly!
    - enlarge (was enhance) now allows selective enlargement to the left, bottom, right and top
    - output HiResBoundingBox
    - never reduce bbox upon output
  - epsfile module:
    - new constructor signature, more in line with rest of PyX:
      epsfile(x, y, filename, **additional_args)
  - data module:
    - removed additional column support in addcolumn; removed _addcolumn
    - line reduction for datafile like the every parameter in gnuplot
  - canvas module:
    - new way of PS prolog generation that writes only necessary parts
    - added support for patterns
    - canvas.insert() now supports arguments
    - bbox of canvas can be specified in writetofile command explicitely
    - writetofile does not return self anymore
    - arrow template now uses intersection with circle to get size right
      (as per a suggestion by Michael Schindler)
  - mathtree module:
    - added abs function
    - changed the handling of extern functions and all variables
  - color module:
    - gradient renamed to palette
  - numerous bugfixes:
    - problem with sizefile on windows (tex module)
    - allow for strings in graphxy's width and height; allow for width only (graph module)
    - disable rating for labelattrs equals None (graph module)
    - defaultstyle selection, when a list of data is provided to the plot function (graph module)
    - traverse when adding functions as arguments of operators (mathtree module)
    - allow for extern functions in addcolumn (data module)
    - just one common place for the version number
    - fix incorrect exception name MathError (path module)
    - prevent double return of intersections for closed sub paths
    - ...

0.2 (2003/01/17):
  - unit module:
    - allow division of length by numbers
  - trafo module:
    - new transformation: slant
    - renamed all trafo methods to use the participle (i.e translate->translated)
    - the name of all trafo subclasses are verbs (i.e. translation->translate)
  - graph module:
    - mark class renamed to symbol
    - (text-)box distance measurement
    - moved axis partitioning to axis and axis painter
    - automatic axis partitioning (now officially: general cleanup, distance measurement, documentation)
    - splitaxis
    - baraxis, baraxispainter, and bar style
  - data module:
    - previously named datafile module
    - class "_datafile" renamed to class "data"
    - class sectionfile added
    - testsuite
  - mathtree module:
    - extern variables and functions (support in graph.function, graph.paramfunction and data.data)
    - testsuite
  - text module:
    - deferred to Version 0.3
    - running TeX "on the fly" is basically implemented
  - numerous bugfixes:
    - transformation bug (#624068, trafo module)
    - canvas transformations (canvas module???)
    - textbox alignment (graph module)
    - return linewidth upon calculation with linewidths (unit module)
    - allow column number variables with several digits
    - ...
  - british and american spellings (color module, graph module)
  - small logo modifications

0.1 (2002/10/07):
  - initial release