Difference in greek tic marks for x11 and aqua?

[Ethan A Merritt]

On Monday 03 November 2008, Dmitri A. Sergatskov wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 7:20 PM, Ben Abbott <bpabbott at mac.com> wrote:
> > On Mac OSX, I noticed that the "aqua" and "x11" terminals give different
> > results when I add greek symbols to the axis tic marks *and* change the axes
> > fontsize.
> >
> > I've attached an "aqua" plot and the script I'm using to create the plots
> > for various terminals. I can't include the x11 bit map, as when I do a snap
> > shot, I get a blank bitmap. So I've included the plotstream for x11 instead.
> > Just type "gnuplot -persist plot-x11.gp" to have the plot rendered.
> >
> > In any event, for x11 the strings with greek letters always show up in the
> > default fontsize (10?).
> >
> > Can someone verify that the fontsize problem exists on Linux? ... and can
> > another Mac OSX user verify it exists for them as well?

I am not aware of any such problem in gnuplot, but without seeing the 
input commands I cannot comment on whether something may be incorrectly
specified to the program.  If you want to pursue this, please upload the
scripts to the Bug tracker on SourceForge:
   https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=102055&group_id=2055

In general, gnuplot leaves font handling to the operating system.
So font problems probably indicate system configuration problems.

> 
> I suggest posting this to <gnuplot-beta at lists.sourceforge.net>.
> 
> The only way i can change fonts in x11 is by:
> 
> set term x11 enhanced "Helvetica, 20"
> 
> or similar. More over -- i suspect there is no true "Helvetica" fonts
> for x11, so it does some kind of substitution.

# xlsfonts | grep -i helv | wc
    320     320   19172

On my machine x11 offers 320 variants of helvetica, some from Adobe
and others from URW.

> Setting  fonts in [x,y]labels etc does not make any effect.

I can guarantee that this works correctly inside gnuplot.
Of course, if your system doesn't really have those fonts installed.....

> I am not sure if it is a bug in octave or just a feature of x11 terminal.

I suspect it is neither, but instead an issue with the local system
font configuration.

-- 
Ethan A Merritt