Graphical user interfaces are increasingly becoming the preferred type of user interface for many users. Graphical interfaces are generally helpful to new and casual users. However, a command language still provides some important advantages. Specifically, It provides portability to a large number of platforms. If a platform provides a reasonably good Fortran 77 compiler and sufficient memory, it should be possible to install Dataplot on that platform with a minimal amount of source code changes.
Command languages are useful for automating routine or commonly performed tasks.
Once you become familiar with a command language, it is typically faster to use than a mouse based interface. The choice between using the GUI interface or the command line interface is often a matter of taste. One important feature of the Dataplot graphical interface is that you can still enter any Dataplot command by simply starting to type it from the keyboard. These commands generate the following output. These commands generate the following output.