Re: [Orgmode] Org, org-plot, and babel+gnuplot on Windows

[John Hendy]

Thanks, Eric.

As an update for everyone, Bruce Ravel, the author of gnuplot-mode wrote to me with this:

------

Hi John,

Sorry for the slow response.  I have been taking some vacation time
recently.

You are not the only one to bring this up recently.  It clearly needs
resolution.  Alas, I have not done much with gnuplot-mode in quite a
while -- that's the problem with code that basically works ;-)  Also,
I spend very little time using windows machines for much of anything,
much less my plotting needs.

Once upon a time, the version of gnuplot that emulated a pipe -- I
think it is called pgnuplot.exe -- worked well with gnuplot-mode.  I
guess that you are saying that is not the case anymore.

So, I agree that this needs to be addressed, but it is hard for me to
make a promise as to the time scale.  Any advice or input that you
might have would be very welcome.

B

------

I responded with an open invitation for him to let me know what I can do to provide him with the information he needs to troubleshoot. I started by changing my commands to use pgnuplot.exe instead of [w]gnuplot.exe and described the result. With my limited elisp knowledge and how any of this stuff is actually working, I expressed that I probably can't troubleshoot on my own but would be happy to do the "grunt" work of having him tell me what to run and then send him back error messages or whatever else. This was earlier this week and I haven't heard since, but the fact that such a busy person even responded at all is phenomenal. He seems quite willing to help rectify this so hopefully I can help.

Any suggestions are welcome. I'll try and keep posting updates.

Best regards,

John

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 7:47 AM, Eric Schulte <address@hidden> wrote:

Hi John,

Thanks for compiling all of this information on this issue.

As recall from investigating this last time it came up, the current
state is that
1) Babel relies on gnuplot-mode for session based evaluation
2) gnuplot-mode does not work on windows

Which results in the need to add a ":session none" header argument on
windows to avoid session based evaluation.  I believe in this case
gnuplot blocks will have to wait for an upstream fix to gnuplot-mode for
sessions to work properly on windows.

Some more comments inline below.

If you could add this to the ob-doc-gnuplot page that would be much
appreciated.

Best -- Eric

John Hendy <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi all,
>
>
> This is a spin-off of the Worg babel-gnuplot announcement:
> http://osdir.com/ml/emacs-orgmode-gnu/2010-09/msg00715.html
>
> In my hunting it seems that there is some history for
> gnuplot/org-plot/Windows issues?
> --- Thread from 2007; no resolution:
> http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Comp/comp.emacs/2007-07/msg00159.html
> --- Thread from 6/09; suggestion to check with gnuplot-mode maintainer:
> http://www.mail-archive.com/address@hidden/msg14544.html
>
> I just set up org-mode on my work Windows XP computer and installed gnuplot
> as follows:
> --- downloaded gp440win32.zip from sourceforge.net
> --- unpacked the zip file to C:\Program Files\gnuplot
> --- opened up and read the README.windows file for instructions
> --- added C:\Program Files\gnuplot\binary\ to my PATH variable
> --- added an env variable called GDFONTPATH and set it to C:\Windows\Fonts
> --- added an env variable called GNUPLOT_FONTPATH and set it to
> C:\Windows\Fonts
> --- added this to init.el: (setq exec-path (append exec-path '("C:/Program
> Files/gnuplot/binary/wgnuplot.exe")))
>
> During my searching, this page came up:
> http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/examples/org-check.php
> --- It appears that the downloadable file, org-check.org, needs to be
> updated. The checks for gnuplot and the other babel languages are not
> actually in the downloaded file. When viewing the page, one (at least me)
> somewhat expects that the full pass/fail chart will be produced in the
> downloaded file, but instead it's only checking LaTeX, make pdfs, and
> agenda.
>

It appears that org-check was removed from the Worg repo last week,
however the page still remains up on Worg...

I've just replaced it in the repository, and updated the link so that it
now points to the current version of org-check.org in the Worg repo on
repo.or.cz, ensuring that the raw and exported file remain sync'd.

>
> I can run gnuplot fine from the Win command line. When trying either
> org-plot/gnuplot or executing a simple babel block, Emacs completely hangs,
> though. Org-plot produces a *gnuplot* buffer with only "reset" in it and
> after a babel execution is done hanging I have a completely blank *gnuplot*
> buffer.
>
> I'm also unable to use gnuplot-mode, though I've not ever used it before. I
> can enter the mode, but things hang when trying to send the buffer to
> gnuplot. I also found this thread which seems to say the same:
> http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/browse_thread/thread/53489131c79f62b3
> .

This is what I recall from looking into this previously, although
without access to any windows computers I can't provide any fist-hand
experience on this issue.

>
> --- There is a reference to using gnuplot through Calc. I quasi-tried
> this but was as mystified by Calc as the first day I touched emacs. I
> got nothing to happen except for g-f to indeed open a gnuplot window.
>
> Is anyone able to help diagnose this further? I'll include any results in
> ob-doc-gnuplot and perhaps it can even get put on Worg on org-plot as well.
> There's got to be a way to make gnuplot play nice with Org...
>
> Does babel require gnuplot-mode to work properly? I realize that org-plot
> does, but don't recall about ob-gnuplot.
>

Yes, non-session evaluation works fine without gnuplot-mode, but
gnuplot-mode is required for session based evaluation.

>
> I sent an email to Bruce Ravel, the author of gnuplot-mode, to ask him
> for any input.
>

I'd be interested to hear if this sounds like it will be resolved in the
near future.

>
>
>
> *Lastly, is this not even for this mailing list? My apologies if so!*
>

Not at all, this seems perfectly appropriate to me.

>
>
>
> Best regards,
> John
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