From rmarson@aoc.nrao.edu Tue Oct 16 17:47:41 2001
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 16:03:19 -0600
From: Ralph Marson <rmarson@aoc.nrao.edu>
To: aips2-naug@lucy.aoc.NRAO.EDU
Subject: raster mode of msplot is ready for testing.

Hi Everyone,
   I know you have all been waiting with baited breath for this
announcement. Well after two days of 'alpha' testing by myself I am
now ready to let other other people have a go at a significantly
updated version of msplot. Listed below are the improvements you may
notice and a shorter list of things which I still need to do. Many
defects have been fixed (I will be going through the list later this
week).

Improvements:
* Editing in raster mode works both for single dish and synthesis
  (continuum or spectral line) measurement sets. This section has been
  almost completely overhauled and there are *MANY* improvements.
* When displaying multiple spectral windows data observed at the same
  time appears in adjacent columns along the time axis.
* When displaying data from multiple fields this is interleaved along
  the time axis in the same order as it was observed.
* The saving/and restoring of state has been improved so that if you
  like a vertical Time axis you can set this once and it will be
  remembered (while you edit the same measurement set). Using msplot
  on a different measurement set will discard the saved state as many of
  the parameters will be invalid.
* manipulation of edit commands (prior to actually doing the flagging)
  works. 

To do list:
* As you can display multiple fields & spectral windows in one image
  it is necessary to display which field, spectral window,
  antenna-names, and time the cursor is currently over. msplot used to
  do this and it is disabled pending me getting it working again.

Problems I'm aware of:
* You cannot edit using a box region that is less than one pixel wide
  on either the x or y axis. To select just one row or column of the
  displayed image use the point region and the appropriate range
  expansion button
* If you press the adjust panel (to adjust the displayed range, flip
  axes etc.) it may not the release the temporary image that is being
  displayed. The workaround is to done the msplot tool and create a
  new one (with the same measurement set).

I'm really interested in comments in the following categories (in
order of priority).
* Weird glish error messages that spew across the terminal screen (if
  they are not reproducable then don't bother - I cannot fix something
  I cannot reproduce).
* Incorrect behaviour ie., the wrong data is flagged or displayed.
* Improvements in the interface, in particular if I used jargon or
  could phrase things better.
* Improvements in the functionality.

Note the new version of msplot is available now in daily *and* weekly in
Socorro. By tomorrow it wil be available in daily at all other aips++
consortium sites.

Cheers

Ralph