[Debian-astro-maintainers] Bug#1023795: Additional

[James Cameron]

Hello Debian Developers!  Thanks for your work.

I'm the developer responsible for upgrading the instrument software
referenced by https://github.com/sso-aat/libpgplot-perl/wiki

On porting to Giza, here are the regressions I found and my analysis;

1.  plot window not staying on display is because Giza does not
implement the PGPLOT /xs or /xserve device, instead collapsing it into
the same as the /xw or /xwindow device.

https://github.com/danieljprice/giza/blob/a6cefc4c0b1e2060ed40ff6f0a46525365952674/src/giza-drivers.c#L897

2.  content rendering - background; our existing plot scripts showed a
black background, but on using Giza the background changed to white;
not investigated, probably requires effort porting the script from
PGPLOT to Giza,

3.  content rendering - curve colours; this also changed, not
investigated,

4.  content rendering - fonts; the size of text changed, not
investigated,

5.  content rendering - overall dimensions; the width and height of
the plot changed, not investigated.

It was cheaper in developer time to undo #869135 and create a local
derivative package.

In discussions with astronomers, they've told me Giza is not a drop-in
replacement, but rather a poor substitute.  Until this week, I had no
idea.  Hope you can do something about it.  Let me know if you have
any questions.