PPEN is called by NEWPEN to change the hardware line type and/or width of the plotting line for subsequent plotting on the metafile. It may be called separately to change only the metafile line type. Ramtek and terminal output device line types may be changed using RMPEN and VPEN, respectively. While the metafile output device supports line types, widths and type scale factors (the length of the linetype dot/dash pattern), the programs which process the LONGLIB metafile into the output format needed by the hardcopy device may not support all features. The precise effects depend on the particular graphics device. Raster scan converter programs for dot matrix printers support all options and the 10 standard line types shown in the last chapter. On other hardcopy devices, the metafile processing program uses the the nearest hardware-supported line type to the standard line type. Line widths are defined in terms of the minimum line widths. The default line type is a solid line of width 1 dot.
CALL PPEN (i)
i (I): selects a line type for all additional plotting
to the LONGLIB metafile
< 0 : resets line type to solid line of unit width.
= 0 : no change
> 0 : line type and width changed according to,
(1's digit) : line type (1-9) (value of 0 does not change type)
(10's digit) : line width (1-7) (value of 0 does not change width)
(100's digit) : line type pattern scaling (1-7) (0 is no change)