KDE Science/Kst/roadmap

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Revision as of 20:07, 12 September 2011 by Nicolas Brisset (talk | contribs) (Update fixed things)


Below is a tentative roadmap, based on a review of all kst bugs referenced in KDE's bugzilla and mailing list discussions.

2.0 Series: early adopters and new users

2.0.1: Intermediate bug fix release (released Nov. 12th 2010)

  • finalize menu/toolbar reorganization (249799)
  • finalize move plots between tabs (248885)
  • fix crash when moving view items (253165)
  • proper escaping of special characters (250014)
  • finish plot dialog revamp (252289) - basically:
    • connect the "Edit" button in the Contents page
    • ensure right order of elements in the left pane (right now the first two are not the most relevant ones)
    • make sure the left pane is always large enough (in width)
  • special characters escaping (250014)
  • update pb in the data manager (248888)
  • X-only zoom and Y-only zoom toolbar buttons (252080)

2.0.2: Critical bugfix (released Nov. 18th 2010)

Released close to 2.0.1 due to a critical bug in 2.0.1 that made it basically unusable. Also implemented some small stuff:

  • fix clipping when dragging
  • allow inserting vector/scalar names at cursor position in the equation editor

2.0.3: Polishing (released April 16th 2011)

  • Bugfixes/polish
    • update fixes (plugin -> equation -> etc, dependencies not always updated)
    • y-local zoom with shared axis box (236678)
    • Saving and reloading a file leads to empty data manager (256401) + other session management issues
    • data manager UI detail: click on the + symbol, then double-click on the item below => you get the dialog corresponding to the wrong item
    • labels from vectors with special chars in their names need to be properly escaped
    • labels generated by fits are broken
    • empty labels not taken into account in plot dialog (needs one space)
    • apply button greyed out in some dialogs
    • edit multiple for vectors: the UI offers it but nothing is active. Either remove the edit multiple button for vectors, or activate the fields
  • UI changes
    • oxygen icons
  • Various checks
    • check change data file tool
    • check remember last settings in various dialogs (data wizard, etc)
    • default names (plugins, etc...) + automatic labels (top-label) sometimes disturbing
  • Small features
    • strings from data file or vectors to be shown in View->Strings dialog (as scalars)
    • more metadata (netcdf) - watch out for update problems + show in UI (View->strings)
    • ASCII units (216730)
    • tied zoom span tabs (221673)
    • SVG export (142986) - and EPS as well
    • File->Recent files... (252079)
  • Misc
    • web site revamp + promotion work
    • full cmake support

2.0.4: Further polishing

  • Bug fixes
    • PDF export vs PDFCreator (219845)
    • distribution of points sometimes very uneven if show points density < all (272578)
    • with many plots in a window and large axis numbers, the labels overlap
    • anti-aliased rotated axes labels (257682)
    • datawizard jumping back to the top of the list
    • issues when dragging items in layout mode (254922 and 255274)
    • Legend items should be unique (272576)
    • Wrong point in PSDs with log scale (272580)
    • Scalar from scalar update problem (272577)
  • UI
    • user-visible string changes (249805)
    • finish UI revamp (esp. context menus + connect plot dialog pages to the way the dialog is opened, e.g. double click on axes opens plot dialog in the right place)
    • legends in more prominent place in plot dialog (236473)
    • scientific notation for extreme axis numbers
  • Various checks
    • check change multiple (esp. on view objects)...
    • undo/redo
    • tab order
    • tooltips + What's this
    • check less often-used plot types
    • documentation
  • Features
    • redo automatic plot layout algorithm
    • Adding a drag and drop capability (272510)
    • data source should text box should handle ~/ as shortcut to $HOME
    • change scalar value directly in the scalar selection combobox
    • legends should be wrapped to always fit inside their plot
    • new curve placement widget missing tab selection
    • as-you-type search in comboboxes (vector selection)
    • Declutter the data manager / find-as-you-type filter as in kst 1.x (257164)
    • jump to next marker
    • ASCII read time in HH:MM:SS.sss format (243684+243445)
    • equations and plugins should no longer generate X slave vector (272575)
    • layout mode span tabs
    • Capability to insert scalar in x/y markers (257153)

2.1 Series: new features + reactivate main missing things from kst 1.x

2.1.0: New features requiring .kst file format update

  • Impact on the file format
    • dimensions tab for line/arrow: x,y instead of length, angle
    • save vectors to file (or embedded) (238923+...)
    • view items should have an option to scroll/zoom with the contents of the plot
    • different colors/sizes for symbols and lines
    • each marker should have its own graphic properties
  • Features
    • text box resizing (221823)
    • cut/copy/paste
    • scripting (QtScript + dbus?)
    • command line switches + full batch operation
    • ASCII configs (216744)
    • ASCII could have an "auto format" mode which uses heuristics to detect the format
    • more capable vector view with more display formats and multiple simultaneous vectors (257285, 257287) - see labplot/scidavis/origin
    • feedback during loading of large documents (92868+92870)
    • proper support or warning for files with non-unique field names (130195) Fixed?
    • in-line changing of axis ranges, if easy (118774)

2.1.1: All kst 1.x features available

  • plugins (including easy "basic plugins" a la kst 1.x and plugin manager)
  • read kst 1.x files, at least load the data and create data objects, layout may not be pixel-perfect

2.1.2: More KDE integration (248184)

  • file dialog
  • toolbar customization
  • GHNS (scripts, sample data, ...)
  • etc...

2.2 Series: Further improvements

  • mask data points for plugin operation (need to review 112549+110734+96249+86915)
  • quick curve creation RMB menu (136780)
  • multi-file data wizard if the above is not sufficient (124942)
  • multiple y axes (126743)
  • custom strings in general settings (142641)
  • sticky "color per file" (124558)
  • flow-around objects (115136+109430+157791), mostly for metadata/custom strings in the borders - for advanced layouting maybe but SVG export may be a nice way to get around it
  • once custom strings and flow-around exist, add support for templates (109472)
  • multiple -Fx switches on command line (115662, comment #8)
  • "buddyVector" feature for automatic detection of X-axis vector (mail on the list, point 2)
  • data sinks to save data back to disk
  • plot manager (124090)
  • proper approach for the update of file metadata used in labels when using change data file ("Metadata updates" mail to be sent by NB)
  • thread kst2
  • edit multiple for view objects, or "style paste" option à la Word or inkscape
  • new datasource: general-purpose configurable binary reader
  • new datasource: general-purpose configurable XML reader
  • new datasource: Matlab .mat file reader (Matlab pretty much sucks at plotting, that'd be a pretty interesting move and there's a spec at http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/pdf_doc/matlab/matfile_format.pdf)
  • end-to-end Arinc429 support?
  • 3D features? (or suggest paraview instead?)

Long term (GSoC ?)

  • turn kst into a real cool signal processing tool (filter design, etc...)
  • ...