Re: st: Re: graph syntax and smalldlg queries

["b. water" <barleywater@hotmail.com>]

Friedrich, Roger,

Thank you for your comments. I just want to say some last words to the 
discussion of this topic. I can appreciate both point of views. The number 
of times I have to refer to the [G] manual (or to hunt particular things) in 
Stata7 - lost counts. That's why I sometimes suggest in the list that ppl 
might want to consider other packages that they are familiar with in order 
to produce graphs they need to produce but were having difficulty doing so 
in Stata, i.e. to adopt line of less resistance to get the job done 
(pragmatic approach). Personally, this means occasionally reverting to 
either excel or spss pending learning Stata8 [G] (now that I have moved to 
Stata8). It's nothing against Stata8. It's feature rich and flexible - just 
need to know how to manipulate them 'options within options within options' 
as Roger so eloquently stated. This can only be achieved from either having 
Stata experts at your back and call, or through accumulation of experiences 
and struggles, aided by manuals, statalist and the patient folks at Stata 
Corp.

So, I don't mind using Stata command line as I have done for some time now 
having started with Stata7. I read somewhere that what can be achieved with 
the dlg boxes can also be achieved with command line. I do not doubt that, 
but the fact that it is then echoed in the command line also makes it an 
incredibly powerful tool, for learning, as time-saver (no need to search in 
[G]) and for reproducibility (with logging). So I imagined having the full 
blown dlg boxes would be tremendous.

As I have said, I do not know how much restricted I am with smalldlg's. For 
now, no thanks to my organization and w98se, I simply would have to put up 
with the fact and make do somewhat.

Kind regards,
bw



> From: Roger Newson <roger.newson@kcl.ac.uk>
> Reply-To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Subject: st: Re: graph syntax and smalldlg queries
> Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 16:32:25 +0100
>
> At 07:49 13/05/03 -0700, Friedrich Huebler wrote:
> > --- "b. water" <barleywater@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > at the moment, our organization has no plan to upgrade w98.
> > > so i guess i will not be able to make full use of stata8,
> > > esp. the graphing dlg boxes for now.
> >
> > Barley,
> >
> > You don't need the big dialog boxes to make full use of Stata 8. The
> > program works just fine under Windows 98.
> But you do need big dialog boxes if you want to write (or even use) an 
> advanced dialog-driven graphics application, in which the non-technical 
> user can select symbol colors, line pattern styles, text sizes and 
> everything else, and get it all exactly right, without using the 
> complicated syntax of the Stata 8 graphics system with its "options within 
> options within options".
>
> It is, of course, best to use do-files, so you know, many months later, 
> what you did at the time, when a colleague wants to make minor changes. And 
> it is also a good thing that Stata 8 graphics dialogs generate a command, 
> which the user can cut and paste into a do-file for future reference, once 
> the graph is exactly right. However, it would be even better if the 
> non-technical user could get the graphics exactly right using only dialogs, 
> and not have to thrash around in the manuals and/or the on-line help to 
> find out whether to use a -size- suboption, a -labsize- suboption or a 
> -msize- suboption. And the people at StataCorp (and the Stata community) 
> are trying to make this possible, but Windows 98 seems to be trying to stop 
> them (and us).
>
> Roger
>
>
> --
> Roger Newson
> Lecturer in Medical Statistics
> Department of Public Health Sciences
> King's College London
> 5th Floor, Capital House
> 42 Weston Street
> London SE1 3QD
> United Kingdom
>
> Tel: 020 7848 6648 International +44 20 7848 6648
> Fax: 020 7848 6620 International +44 20 7848 6620
>   or 020 7848 6605 International +44 20 7848 6605
> Email: roger.newson@kcl.ac.uk
>
> Opinions expressed are those of the author, not the institution.
>
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