I've been poking about for something like gnuplot, something python
friendly, with an idea to wrap it up into a simple Sugar activity to
allow basic (and advanced, but that would be not primary to the UI)
graph/plot experimentation. Now most of the things I've looked as so
far hit some road bump, usually needing full compile environment or
some weird dependancy I couldn't sort out, but yesterday I tried
matplotlib:
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/
All you need is an internet connection, about 5Mb space, and not to be
scared of Terminal. Here's how you download and install it (tested on
an XO running 8.2-767):
sudo yum install python-matplotlib
Python can now be used to generate all sorts of graphs, the quick way
to start experimenting is via ipython:
ipython -pylab
And then try this for starters:
x = randn(1000)
hist(x, 100)
You'll be presented with the graph (10,000 gausian random numbers in a
histogram with 100 bins) in full screen (alt-esc or use frame icon to
close). Take a look at their gallery to see a wide range of much more
exciting examples:
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/gallery.html
I'll probably experiment with this for a few weeks and then start
thinking about a simple/clean Sugar UI to expose the needed features.
I'm posting to IAEP incase anyone wants to chime in with some use
cases for our target demographics.
--Gary
P.S. I'm open to other (working) graph tool suggestions, if I've
missed something obvious.
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