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Nifty keen...
Apr. 5th, 2014 03:13 pmFile under, "huh, that's kinda cool"...
If you install the GPL version of GhostScript onto your Windoze computer, with the Alchemy Mindworks "PostScript (EPS, PS, AI, PDF)" plugin and a little tweak to a configuration file, Graphics Workshop Professional can use it to create thumnails (to help with browsing) and full images of PDFs, EPS files (which I use for LaTeX documents), Adobe Illustrator files, and actual PostScript files (should you have any of those). It can also convert images to those formats as well: "The Graphic Workshop PostScript plugin will allow Graphic Workshop to render EPS, PS, AI and PDF files as high-resolution images. It features full multiple-page PDF support, and it will render PDF files either as individual user-selectable pages, or as a single image with all the pages from your original PDF document. It can also convert graphics in other formats to EPS, PS, AI and PDF files, with some limitations."
Edit: Because this is already a post about computer stuff, I decided to add this little bit that I ran across just now as I fought with the nightmarish monstrosity that is the ROOT Data Analysis Framework. It is written in C++ and it pretty much goes downhill from there. I would like to share this link to everyone else who has been repeatedly stabbed in the face by C++: the "C++ Frequently Questioned Answers" (C++ FQA) (which was published in response to a particularly well-known "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) about C++). From the intro: "This page summarizes the major defects of the C++ programming language (listing all minor quirks would take eternity). To be fair, some of the items by themselves could be design choices, not bugs. It's the combination of the things that makes them all problematic."
Second Edit: ("But what about Second Edit?" ... "Don't think he knows about Second Edit, Pip...") I fought for four hours just trying to figure out how to reverse the direction of my graph axes in ROOT. The answer is apparently that you have to draw your own axes using the TGAxis axis class using a TF1 equations class then superimpose them on the TCanvas you are working in at the correct location... but because you are just drawing axes you have to flip the positions of all of your data in both the x and y directions so it will match the axes!!! What. The. Actual. Fuck??? Seriously??? I have to modify my data just to plot it on a graph??? That is so utterly wrong in so many possible ways. I can't imagine the number of hours, the hundreds of hours, the thousands of hours, that have been wasted in fighting with such an obvious shortcoming, not to mention the real danger of getting the plot wrong and misinterpreting the data (which could literally destroy the careers of physicists who make that kind of error). So... after an evening and morning of avoidance strategies, I finally decided to see what it would take to do it in the R language. It took me 3 minutes of searching on the web and 2 more minutes to try it. Done. It is one line of code... one fucking line of code... done. Assuming the data is already loaded into the vectors "x_data" and "y_data" (something, I might add, that takes 1 line each to load them from CSV files), the program is the following:
plot(x_data, y_data, xlim=rev(range(x_data)), ylim=rev(range(y_data)))
That's it, that's all. I am apparently going to be forced to use ROOT while I am doing any sort of experimental physics or data analysis associated with the LHC project (ATLAS in specific)... just FML. Ugh.
If you install the GPL version of GhostScript onto your Windoze computer, with the Alchemy Mindworks "PostScript (EPS, PS, AI, PDF)" plugin and a little tweak to a configuration file, Graphics Workshop Professional can use it to create thumnails (to help with browsing) and full images of PDFs, EPS files (which I use for LaTeX documents), Adobe Illustrator files, and actual PostScript files (should you have any of those). It can also convert images to those formats as well: "The Graphic Workshop PostScript plugin will allow Graphic Workshop to render EPS, PS, AI and PDF files as high-resolution images. It features full multiple-page PDF support, and it will render PDF files either as individual user-selectable pages, or as a single image with all the pages from your original PDF document. It can also convert graphics in other formats to EPS, PS, AI and PDF files, with some limitations."
Edit: Because this is already a post about computer stuff, I decided to add this little bit that I ran across just now as I fought with the nightmarish monstrosity that is the ROOT Data Analysis Framework. It is written in C++ and it pretty much goes downhill from there. I would like to share this link to everyone else who has been repeatedly stabbed in the face by C++: the "C++ Frequently Questioned Answers" (C++ FQA) (which was published in response to a particularly well-known "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) about C++). From the intro: "This page summarizes the major defects of the C++ programming language (listing all minor quirks would take eternity). To be fair, some of the items by themselves could be design choices, not bugs. It's the combination of the things that makes them all problematic."
Second Edit: ("But what about Second Edit?" ... "Don't think he knows about Second Edit, Pip...") I fought for four hours just trying to figure out how to reverse the direction of my graph axes in ROOT. The answer is apparently that you have to draw your own axes using the TGAxis axis class using a TF1 equations class then superimpose them on the TCanvas you are working in at the correct location... but because you are just drawing axes you have to flip the positions of all of your data in both the x and y directions so it will match the axes!!! What. The. Actual. Fuck??? Seriously??? I have to modify my data just to plot it on a graph??? That is so utterly wrong in so many possible ways. I can't imagine the number of hours, the hundreds of hours, the thousands of hours, that have been wasted in fighting with such an obvious shortcoming, not to mention the real danger of getting the plot wrong and misinterpreting the data (which could literally destroy the careers of physicists who make that kind of error). So... after an evening and morning of avoidance strategies, I finally decided to see what it would take to do it in the R language. It took me 3 minutes of searching on the web and 2 more minutes to try it. Done. It is one line of code... one fucking line of code... done. Assuming the data is already loaded into the vectors "x_data" and "y_data" (something, I might add, that takes 1 line each to load them from CSV files), the program is the following:
plot(x_data, y_data, xlim=rev(range(x_data)), ylim=rev(range(y_data)))
That's it, that's all. I am apparently going to be forced to use ROOT while I am doing any sort of experimental physics or data analysis associated with the LHC project (ATLAS in specific)... just FML. Ugh.
