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Ploticus version 2.11+ supports the
shockwave flash (SWF)
output format.
Use the -swf command line option.
SWF support is only available when included at compile time and requires the ming library (see
build instructions
and the Makefile). Ming version 0.2a was used during the original development effort.
Fonts
Environment variable SWF_FONTS_DIR must be defined to hold the full path name of a directory
containing .fdb font files. The ploticus SWF driver expects font names to be a single token;
font names containing embedded whitespace should be renamed (or soft linked) to a name containing no
embedded whitespace.
More info on fonts
Output files
Output files will be named .swf by default.
These files can be viewed directly using a browser that has a flash plugin.
Example
The example below was created by issuing this command:
pl -swf stock.htm
stock.swf
stock ploticus script
Here's the embed HTML:
<embed src="../gallery/stock.swf"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height=300 width=500>
</embed>
Bugs / not supported:
line dash styles
clickable regions / click maps / mouseover tooltip text bubbles
some color change issues have been occasionally noted
fontnames having embedded spaces don't work - rename your font file or make a soft link
The SWF driver does not release memory correctly when there are multiple "jobs" per OS process,
as might be done when using the libploticus API.
Still, it seems to produce usable .swf results in
my tests of about 20 jobs in one OS process. (scg - May 12, 2004)
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to Bill Traill
( bill@traill.demon.co.uk )
for initiating ploticus
SWF support and writing the ploticus SWF driver.
