Projects, in no particular order:

- revise border command to use keywords
- put minor tics into demo file

- define either quit or exit to mean finish-this-file, not finish session
  - at present, they are ignored in script files

longer term

- break it into four layers:
  : low level graphics  (some of term.c)
  : plotting code, reading the setshow.h global variables
  : parsing code - read a string, and parse and execute it
  : front end, interact with terminal / gui
  basically, gplotlib is layer 2, and the traditional gnuplot is
  layer 4, which is little more than a small client of layer 3.
  Terminal option lines are table driven,
  so that even though the options are defined by layer 1, the
  actual parsing is implemented in level 3

- group related 'set' variables into structures, particularly xaxis
  stuff,etc. This will allow a move to table-driven parsing.

Lars' list

- much-requested feature: read text/commands from data files
- provide library of replacement functions instead of stdfn.c
- possibly switch to automake
  [PARTIALLY DONE] not done yet: docs lisp
  [docs is next; won't do lisp]
- completely rewrite the parser. Use yacc/bison if possible.
- maybe rewrite the scanner in lex? The benefits are not so obvious,
  because the current scanner is extremely simple. This is probably
  only worthwhile if the parser is rewritten at the same time.
- maybe use PD hash code for table-lookup (SNIPPETS code). Tables for
  builtin and user functions, variables, commands. What else? aliases
- [Robert S. Maier] rewrite term.c to provide an interface to GNU plotutils
- [HBB] rewrite hidden3d code (in the works)
- for post-3.7 release: integrate new feature patches (M. Koga's
  polygon patch, various postscript driver patches by Dick, T. Walter's
  gnuplot command line history save file, etc)? 
  All done except polygon patch. Better to use pm3d.
- standardise float/double comparisons around the suggestion in the
  comp.lang.c FAQ (What's a good way to check for "close enough"
  floating-point equality?) and symbolic constants from standard header files.
  LOADS of errors throughout the code, especially in graphics.c
- autogenerate term.h from config file in text format and/or configure?
- should gnuplot_x11 be in prefix/libexec???
- parse "~" in filenames as $HOME
  [PARTIALLY DONE] does not work for cd, set output
  [PARTIALLY DONE] works for all cmds now; plot key shows "~" instead
  of path (-> fix); does not accept "~" and "~user". Maybe implement
  former, latter requires reading passwd file (-> not!)
- general expansion of user defined and environment vars in
  labels?
- string variables, aliases
- [Lucas] fix axis ranges, overwritten labels in demos
- png driver needs update for png versions >=0.95
  must be backwards compatible (do we want to require png >=0.95? We
  already require >=0.89; possible compile problems under Irix 6.x which
  comes with png 0.88/zlib 1.0)
- write or organise a portable version of snprintf(3) with a copyright
  compatible with the gnuplot copyright (ie. no GPL) (Apache?)
- gnuplot often doesn't free() memory; rearrange code to do this
  [memdump() function, command; mem_cleanup(), to be called on
   exit and reset; check existing code]
- add Amiga WinGnuplot driver and related files (difficult; cannot get
  it to run successfully when compiled with gcc)
- add more maintainer checks (eg. file permissions)
- better lisp/ files integration (Makefile target to import Bruce's
  latest version). How to handle duplicates?
- better documentation format; get rid of the doc2xxx utils
  [SGML. SGML. SGML]
- update the FAQ!!!!
  [Being worked on bei Juergen]
  updated version now in archive
- non-integer time value in 'pause' command
  implement using select() where available, or usleep(); round off
  on systems without
- tilde and variable expansion to be done by 
  gp_fopen() - to be implemented
- fix bug which prints "DI,1DI,0" in the upper left corner of the plot when
  in pcl5 mode and printing to an HP Laserjet 4+ (J. Breeding, bug-gnuplot)
DONE - integrate gpltconv into gnuplot (convert command?), configure option
DONE - make history size configurable (set historysize)
DONE - port writeback fix to 3.8

HBB:
WIN16 compile (BC++3.1):
-- no vfprintf simulation for the WText module, yet --> int_error problematic
-- graphics.c: too much global data?

WIN32 compile (BC++4.52):
-- problems with the 16bit helper programs doc2help, bf_test (local installation problem suspected)
-- test run fails: script execution stops as soon as first plot is done.

Petr Mikulik (info-gnuplot-beta Thu, 02 Mar 2000)
it would be very convenient to set the values/formulae for columns in 
advance, before "plot" --- something like
        set data using 3:($8/$9+1)