Version 0.8

Post date: Nov 9, 2011 8:19:28 PM

• • Version 0.8.4, 06 Sep 2006:

    • • Fixed Phyplot PS output so that the grid lines are rendered properly when a polar graph is in one of the single quadrant modes. Formerly, the PS output drew an entire circle for each major tick mark along the radial axis, rather than the appropriate quarter-circle.

      • When the user exits Phyplot and the current document is "dirty", a Save Document dialog pops up to ask whether or not the document should be saved. In previous versions, the application would still exit if the user cancelled out of the dialog. Now, it will abort application exit if the user cancels or if the save operation failed for some reason.

      • [Mac OSX] The 1.5 (5.0) JVM is now the preferred JVM for running under Mac OS X, but 1.4.x is still supported. Changed the Java JVMVersion key from "1.4*" to "1.4+" in Info.plist file. Now, Phyplot will run in a 1.5 JVM if the OS X version supports it (10.4.5 or greater).

      • [Mac OSX] Fixed inadvertent bug that completely disabled printing in a 1.5.* JVM under Mac OS X. Not sure when the bug was introduced.

  • Version 0.8.3, 11 Apr 2006:

    • • Bug fixed: Postscript output was incorrect if it included a data set with a hidden line style. Essentially, the hidden style was never "undone", so that subsequent lines and paths were never stroked. Bug was introduced in version 0.8.2.

      • When an existing Phyplot document is opened, the focus is now placed on the first figure in the document rather than on the root node; that figure is then displayed on the figure canvas.

      • When Phyplot starts up, it will open the most recently used file. If the MRU file list is empty, it will open a new document.

      • If an existing Phyplot document is opened, its absolute file system path is reflected in the main frame window's title bar. (May not work on Mac?)

  • Version 0.8.2, 17 Mar 2006:

    • • The line element was modified to make it more general. The p0Cap, p0CapSize, p1Cap, p1CapSize, midCap, and midCapSize attributes are no longer recognized. Instead, the line can parent any number of shape elements -- so authors can place any number of symbols anywhere along the line segment, or offset from it. Furthermore, one can now separately control how each shape is stroked and filled, which was not possible in the previous incarnation of the line element. Obviously, this is a schema change, and existing documents are automatically migrated to the new schema.

      • Introduced support for "lettered" marker symbols and more control over symbol styling: The new symbol element is a required child for all data set elements. Similar to ebar, it specifies the type, size, and styling of the marker symbol rendered at each data point location. The old symbol and symbolSize attributes were removed from the schema, which entailed some changes to the legend and fyp elements. The symbol element includes a title attribute, and the first letter of that attribute value is centered horizontally and vertically within the symbol's design box, and painted using the strokeColor rather than the fillColor.

      • The Function Editor panel was absorbed into the Data Set Editor panel, with widgets specific to a function element appearing under the Function tab. Introduced the Symbol tab to let user specify type and styling of marker symbols IAW attributes defined on the new symbol child element... Also made miscellaneous changes to some of the other element editor panels.

      • Miscellaneous changes: (1) Fine-tuned some of the default attribute values as recommended by Steve to improve the appearance of manually created figures and graphs. (2) Introduced new system-defined templates that Steve contributed. (3) Temporarily disabled the user-defined preferences for default values of selected attributes. Users can still change the defaults on a per-document basis via the Document Defaults Editor panel.

  • Version 0.8.1, 23 Jan 2006: Various improvements/simplifications in printing support --

    • • The thumbnail preview in the Page Setup dialog now displays the currently selected figure (if there is one), albeit with any data sets removed so that the thumbnails does not take too long to render.

      • The #Copies and Collate features were removed from the Print dialog. For the time being, Phyplot will not support multiple-copy printing.

      • The Print to file checkbox was removed from the Print dialog. In its place is a checkbox labelled Use native Java2D->PS converter?. This checkbox is enabled only if the target printer is Postscript-compatible. If checked, Phyplot will send Java2D graphics to the print service, letting the native platform handle conversion to Postscript. This generally results in much larger print jobs (especially if the figure has a lot of text), but much better WYSIWYG output. By default, the box is unchecked, in which case Phyplot generates a custom page description that is much more compact and prints much faster, but is restricted to a small subset of Postscript fonts (so text may appear different).

      • Fixed scaling and orientation problem with printed output.

      • Identified problems with printing on Mac OS X. All of them are a consequence of bugs or omissions in Apple's support for printing from within a Java application. Phyplot modified where possible to workaround these issues, which are also discussed in the online user's guide.

  • Version 0.8.0, 23 Nov 2005:

    • • Bugs fixed: (1) Postscript generator was ignoring style attributes -- such as font size and stroke width -- set explicitly on a ticks element. (2) If you change the coordinate range of an axis element on the Axis Editor panel, any tick sets for which the range has NOT been explicitly set will inherit the new range endpoints. In such cases, the embedded tick set editor on the Axis Editor must update itself accordingly. It does not, which is quite confusing! (3) If lineType="hidden" on the ebar child of a series element and the series is displayed in trace mode, Phyplot fails to render a filled error band when it should. (4) If the current user has not defined any figure templates, then the Edit|Manage templates... command should be disabled. It is not.

      • Miscellaneous minor changes: (1) Removed the substfont attribute (labelled "generic") from the Font Editor panel. This attribute is only defined on the fyp element, and only the Document Defaults panel is relevant to that element. (2) Changed the way in which an author hides the automated legend entry for a particular function, pointSet, or series element: A boolean-valued hide attribute was added to each of these data set element classes. If hide="true", no entry is rendered for that element in the parent graph's legend. Prior to this change, the author had to deliberately set the element's title attribute to an empty string to hide the corresponding legend entry -- which was rather non-intuitive. (3) Any time you open an existing file in Phyplot, that file is added to the "most recently used" list (in prior versions, you had to save the file before it would appear in the MRU list). (4) Added a (mostly useless) Help menu with a single About Phyplot... menu item. This invokes a dialog that displays the current version of the progam and the date that version was released. (5) Introduced support for three Mac OS X-specific Application Menu items. When Phyplot is running under OS X, this menu is labelled with the application's name in the menu bar. The menu items Quit, About, and Preferences are supported. The equivalent Windows-style menu items File|Exit, Help|About Phyplot..., and Edit|Preferences... are omitted in the Mac OS X version.

      • [Important] Implemented a change in format for the ASCII text file holding data for a series element: The file must no longer list the values of the x0 and dx attributes on the first line. These attributes are easily adjusted in the Data Editor after loading the file.

      • Reworked layout of the Data Editor panel, which is relevant to the pointSet, series, and multiSet elements. Content is presented in a tabbed "property page" layout, with Line Style, Error Style, and Data Set tabs. Attributes on the Line Style tab (and the Draw Styles editor panel) govern rendering of the adorned polyline for a pointSet or series (in points display mode) and the "average" trace for a multiSet. Additional attributes unique to a series element are also included on this tab. Rendering of error information (error bars, +/-1STD polylines, the individual point set polylines for a multiSet) is controlled by attributes on the Error Style tab, and the data points themselves can be viewed and edited on the Data Set tab. The clunky multi-column table by which the user can view and edit individual data points has been replaced by a much simpler single-column table, with one "datum tuple" per row. The table is now more compact and easier to navigate, but it is less intuitive -- the user has to know the correct format. Insert and Delete buttons appear below the "tuple table". When a multiSet element has the focus, a text field appears across from these buttons, letting the user change the number of individual point sets comprising the multiSet.

      • Implemented a new kind of data set element: multiSet is a "compound point set" -- ie, two or more point sets sharing the same x-coordinates. Unlike the pointSet element, this element does NOT include standard deviation data -- the idea is that each individual point set is a repeated measurement of the same quantity at different points in time, space, frequency, etc... Data tuple format: x y1 y2 ... yN for a collection of N point sets. Each individual point set in the collection is rendered as a separate polyline, and a polyline tracing the average of the point sets is also rendered (but it can be hidden -- read on!). Note that "NaN" samples are not counted when calculating the mean. Like pointSet and series, the multiSet element includes a single mandatory ebar child node. [The user never really sees this child node, but its attributes are presented on the Error Style tab of the Data Editor panel.] Attributes on this node govern the appearance of the polylines for the individual point sets, while attributes on the multiSet node itself govern the appearance of the "average" polyline. Thus, e.g., you can make the average trace stand out from the individual traces by suitably adjusting the relevant styles, such as strokeWidth, strokeColor, and lineType. You can also choose not to display the average trace at all -- simply set lineType="hidden" on the multiSet. If the individual traces disappear too, that's because the child ebar element currently inherits the lineType attribute value from the parent multiSet; to fix this, open the Error Style tab and change the lineType parameter.

      • Introduced the shape element to facilitiate the making of flowchart figures and the annotation of graphs. Any of the marker/end-cap adornments currently supported in Phyplot can now be rendered as a shape in a figure or graph element. The new element possesses all the usual style attributes, a loc attribute defining the center point of the shape's "design box" in the parent element's viewport, a rotate attribute defining the shape's orientation as a rotation about the center point, and a size attribute indicating the size of the square design box in real units. In addition, if the element's title attribute is not empty, the title text is drawn vertically and horizontally centered about the shape's center point. Note, however, that the text is drawn using the shape element's strokeColor rather than its fillColor (otherwise, the label would be invisible inside filled shapes). The shape element can also parent any number of label elements.