[Distribution] PSTricks 97 distribution repackaged

[Denis Girou]

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  As proposed some weeks ago, I repackage drastically the PSTricks 97
distribution to clarify the organization, to give more informations about
installation and content of the various subdirectories, and to clearly show
what is "officially supported" by actual mainteners and what is given "as it".

  I just put the whole distribution on
http://www.tug.org/applications/PSTricks/Temporary/pst97.tar.gz
to allow interested people to look at it and comment it before general
diffusion. It will not offer really new functionalities, but your opinion can
be useful to improve some points. As it is this distribution which must be
included in the TeXLive 3 cdrom coming very soon, if you have comments, you
must preferably give them in the next days.

  The main changes are:

  - The general README has been rewritten (specially to clarify installation
instructions) and several new ones written in subdirectories.

  - The origdoc subdirectory has been migrated on obsolete/doc

  - The src.old subdirectory has been migrated on obsolete/src

  - The doc subdirectory has been created. It contain only the up to date and
supported documentation files.

  - A general and supported test file test-pst.tex has been added in the doc
subdirectory. It allow to test all the various parts of the distribution
(excluding the `pst-fill' package). It is the unification in a single file of
most of the examples of the PSTricks chapter of "The LaTeX Graphics Companion".

  - A documentation for the `pst-fill' package has been added in the doc
subdirectory. It require the `fancyvrb' and `fvrb-ex' packages.

  - The `pst-key' package from David Carlisle has been added. It is on
contrib/misc. It offer an interface between PSTricks and the standard `keyval'
package (from David Carlisle too) to define and manage macro parameters.
It must be added directly in a future version of the `keyval' package itself.

  - The `pst-poly' package from me has been added. It is on contrib/pst-poly.
It contain both source code, documentation and test files. The documentation
require the `fancyvrb' and `fvrb-ex' packages.

  - The `fancybox' package has been removed. In fact, it is not related to
PSTricks. It will be migrated on: CTAN/macros/latex/contrib/supported/fancybox

  - The `colortab' package has been removed. It is clearly related to
PSTricks, but we (mainteners) don't know at all the code, don't use it any
more and are not able to maintain and help with it...
    LaTeX users should consider today the supported `colortbl' package by
David Carlisle (CTAN/macros/latex/contrib/supported/carlisle/colortbl.dtx
+ .ins).
    But plain TeX users must continue use `colortab', which offer the most
powerful solution to have colored cells in arrays with plain.
    In any case, the only known problem with `colortab' in that it is no more
compatible with the LaTeX `longtable' package.
    `colortab' will be migrated on: CTAN/macros/generic/colortab
Il will also be removed from the actual CTAN/macros/generic/contrib

  - The `palette' package (from the old contrib/palette directory) has been
migrated on obsolete/contrib/palette
    We strongly advice people to use today the standard `color' package
to manage colors with PSTricks, so to don't use any more this package
(we emphasize also that the `color' package is available both with LaTeX and
plain TeX).

  - All the version numbers of the files have been uniformized (excluding
for the `multido' package). They are now all of the form "97 [patch N]".

  - Changes in the files have been standardized in the form:
% XX modification begin - Date - Patch N
%Old code
New code
% XX modification end

  - I introduce the last unreleased patches for bug corrections previously
given only on the mailing list.

  - I add various miscellaneous changes.


  Notes: * Some documentations require the `fancyvrb' and `fvrb-ex' packages
which will be released only at the end of March for EuroTeX'98. But the
formatted versions are available on the Web pages.

         * As among the corrections I introduce in pstricks.pro the relevant
one for the problem described last December in
http://www.tug.org/ListsArchives/pstricks/msg00088.html
I'm specially interested to verify that people using other DVI to PS converter
than dvips can still visualize examples like (I hope so!):

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{pstricks}

\newcommand{\Square}{%
\begin{pspicture}(1,1)
  \psframe[fillstyle=hlines,hatchwidth=0.5\psunit,hatchsep=0.5\psunit](1,1)
\end{pspicture}}

\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}
\psset{unit=4}
\Square\hspace{3cm}\Square
\end{document}

D.G.

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