3.24.39 mouse

The command ‘set mouse‘ enables mouse actions. Currently the pm, x11, ggi, windows and wxt terminals are mouse enhanced. There are two mouse modes. The 2d-graph mode works for 2d graphs and for maps (i.e. splots with view having z-rotation 0, 90, 180, 270 or 360 degrees, including ‘set view map‘) and it allows tracing the position over graph, zooming, annotating graph etc. For 3d graphs ‘splot‘, the view and scaling of the graph can be changed with mouse buttons 1 and 2. If additionally to these buttons the modifier <ctrl> is hold down, the coordinate system only is rotated which is useful for large data sets. A vertical motion of Button 2 with the shift key hold down changes the xyplane.

Mousing is not available in multiplot mode. When multiplot is finished using multiplot, then the mouse will be turned on again and acts on the last plot (like replot does).

Syntax:

      set mouse {doubleclick <ms>} {nodoubleclick} \
                {{no}zoomcoordinates} \
                {noruler | ruler {at x,y}} \
                {polardistance{deg|tan} | nopolardistance} \
                {format <string>} \
                {clipboardformat <int>/<string>} \
                {mouseformat <int>/<string>} \
                {{no}labels {"labeloptions"}} \
                {{no}zoomjump} {{no}verbose}
      unset mouse

The doubleclick resolution is given in milliseconds and used for Button 1 which copies the current mouse position to the ‘clipboard‘. If you want that to be done by single clicking a value of 0 ms can be used. The default value is 300 ms.

The option ‘zoomcoordinates‘ determines if the coordinates of the zoom box are drawn at the edges while zooming. This is on by default.

The options ‘noruler‘ and ‘ruler‘ switch the ruler off and on, the latter optionally setting the origin at the given coordinates. While the ruler is on, the distance in user units from the ruler origin to the mouse is displayed continuously. By default, toggling the ruler has the key binding ’r’.

The option ‘polardistance‘ determines if the distance between the mouse cursor and the ruler is also shown in polar coordinates (distance and angle in degrees or tangent (slope)). This corresponds to the default key binding ’5’.

The ‘format‘ option takes a fprintf like format string which determines how floating point numbers are printed to the drivers window and the clipboard. The default is "% #g".

‘clipboardformat‘ and ‘mouseformat‘ are used for formatting the text on Button1 and Button2 actions – copying the coordinates to the clipboard and temporarily annotating the mouse position. This corresponds to the key bindings ’1’, ’2’, ’3’, ’4’ (see the driver’s documentation). If the argument is a string this string is used as c format specifier and should contain two float specifiers, e.g. ‘set mouse mouseformat "mouse = %5.2g, %10.2f"‘. Use ‘set mouse mouseformat ""‘ to turn this string off again.

The following formats are available (format 6 may only be selected if the format string was specified already):

 0   real coordinates in  brackets e.g. [1.23, 2.45]
 1   real coordinates w/o brackets e.g.  1.23, 2.45
 2   x == timefmt                       [(as set by timefmt), 2.45]
 3   x == date                          [31. 12. 1999, 2.45]
 4   x == time                          [23:59, 2.45]
 5   x == date / time                   [31. 12. 1999 23:59, 2.45]
 6   alt. format, specified as string   ""

Choose the option labels to define persistent gnuplot labels using Button 2. The default is ‘nolabels‘, which makes Button 2 draw only a temporary label at the mouse position. Labels are drawn with the current setting of ‘mouseformat‘. The ‘labeloptions‘ string is passed to the ‘set label‘ command. The default is "point pointstyle 1" which will plot a small plus at the label position. Temporary labels will disappear at the next replot or mouse zoom operation. Persistent labels can be removed by holding the Ctrl-Key down while clicking Button 2 on the label’s point. The threshold for how close you must be to the label is also determined by the pointsize.

If the option ‘zoomjump‘ is on, the mouse pointer will be automatically offset a small distance after starting a zoom region with button 3. This can be useful to avoid a tiny (or even empty) zoom region. ‘zoomjump‘ is off by default.

If the option ‘verbose‘ is turned on the communication commands are shown during execution. This option can also be toggled by hitting ‘6‘ in the driver’s window. ‘verbose‘ is off by default.

Press ’h’ in the driver’s window for a short summary of the mouse and key bindings. This will also display user defined bindings or ‘hotkeys‘ which can be defined using the ‘bind‘ command, see help for ‘bind‘. Note, that user defined ‘hotkeys‘ may override the default bindings.

Press ’q’ in the driver’s window to close the window. This key cannot be overridden with the ‘bind‘ command.

See also help for ‘bind‘ and ‘label‘.