Xmgr to Grace migration guide
This is a very brief guide describing problems and workarounds for
reading in project files saved with Xmgr.
0. DOCUMENTATION IS LARGELY NOT UPDATED YET!!!
1. Grace must be explicitly told the version number of the software used
to create a file. You can either manually put "@version VERSIONID"
string in the beginning of the file or use the command line switch
-pexec "version VERSIONID". The VERSIONID is built as
MAJOR_REV*10000 + MINOR_REV*100 + PATCHLEVEL; so 40101 corresponds to
xmgr-4.1.1. In fact, any number should work as far as it corresponds to a
version below 4.1.2.
Projects saved with Xmgr-4.1.2 do NOT need the above, since they already
have the version string in them.
2. The above relates to the ascii projects only. The old binary projects (saved
with xmgr-4.0.*) are not automatically converted anymore. An input filter
must be defined to make the conversion work on-the-fly. Add the following
line to ~/.gracerc or the system-wide $GRACE_HOME/gracerc resource file:
DEFINE IFILTER "grconvert %s -" MAGIC "00000031"
See docs for more info on the I/O filters.
3. Grace is WYSIWYG. Xmgr was not. Many changes required to achieve the
WYSIWYG'ness led to the situation when graphs with objects carefully
aligned under Xmgr don't look so under Grace. You'll have to adjust such
graphs manually. This is the price. In future, probably, Grace will be
smarter trying to compensate for the differences.
4. Bar charts and Smith plots don't work now. They'll be put back soon.
5. A lot of symbol types (all except *real* symbols) are removed. "Location *"
types can be replaced (with much higher comfort) by A(nnotating)values.
"Impulse *", "Histogram *" and "Stair steps *" effects can be achieved
using the connecting line parameters (Type, Drop lines). "Dot" symbol is
removed as well; use any other symbol (say, circle) of the minimal (1) size.
6. Default page layout switched from free (allowing to resize canvas with
mouse) to fixed. For the old behaviour, put "PAGE LAYOUT FREE" in the Grace
resource file or use the "-free" command line switch.
7. System variables GR_* renamed to GRACE_*
8. A lot of other things changed. I don't have time to describe everything now,
sorry, but will try to answer questions raised on the mailing list. I will
NOT answer personal e-mails.