Version 3.1

Post date: Nov 10, 2011 12:14:32 AM

• • Version 3.1.7, 18 Mar 2009: Added File menu command Print all..., which prints all open figures in one go. Also fixed PS generator to handle the four new end-cap adornment styles introduced in version 3.1.6.

  • Version 3.1.6, 02 Mar 2009: Added four end-cap  adornment styles: dart, kite, reversedart, and reversekite. All of these are designed so that the tip of the arrow-like marker coincides with the marker's specified location. Also fixed two minor bugs.

  • Version 3.1.5, 25 Feb 2009: Support for Matlab-like "compass plots". When rendering an X-Y data trace in histogram mode within a polar graph, if the bar width is zero and the marker symbol is non-circular, each marker is now rotated so that it points in the direction of the ray emanating from the baseline and ending at the data point where the marker is rendered. Prior to this change, all markers were aligned with the X and Y axes.

  • Version 3.1.4, 03 Feb 2009: The change to the Workspace Browser's directory combo box in v3.1.3 made it too wide, so that the pushbutton (for selecting sort order) to its immediate right was no longer visible, at least on Mac OS X. Fixed.

  • Version 3.1.3, 14 Jan 2009:

    • • The appearance of entries in the directory combo box (and its dropdown list) in the Workspace Browser has changed again. The directory name is followed by its full pathname in parentheses, eg, "paper1 (F:\temp\paper1)". This works better with the new sort order support while clearing up ambiguity when there are two workspace directories with the same name.

      • Modified the DataSet Editor popup dialog to include both a "tabular" and "text" view of the dataset being displayed/edited. A pushbutton in the dialog's bottom-left corner lets the user toggle the view mode. Text mode is restricted to datasets that have a total data size of ~50K floats or less, or a representational text size of ~250K characters or less. Completely revamped how dataset is edited in tabular mode. The context-menu approach was replaced in favor of a more typical cut/copy/paste approach using the current table selection. Additional operations include "insert paste" (clipboard contents are inserted before the current selection without removing the selected data), append or insert a row or column, and delete the current selection (without saving a copy in the clipboard). The various editing operations are dynamically enabled/disabled depending on the current table selection and the dataset format. They are accessible via keyboard shortcuts when the focus is on the data table, or by buttons in an adjacent toolbar. The effect of the paste operations will vary depending on the shape of the table selection and the shape of the clipboard contents. The tabular view has become a fairly complex feature -- a detailed entry on how to use it was included in the online user's guide.

  • Version 3.1.2, 22 Dec 2008:

    • • Added ability to sort the directory and file listings in the Workspace Browser in alphabetical order by file name or chronological order by last modified date. A pushbutton to the right of the directory combo box raises a popup menu by which the preferred sort order is selected. The sort order preference is maintained among the user's workspace settings.

      • When exporting the current figure, the chooser dialog initializes the file selection to the name and location of the corresponding figure definition file, if that file exists. The file extension is modified to match that of the target file format (.ps, .jpg, .png).

      • New submenu File|Export All lets user export ALL open figures to one of the three supported external file formats (Postscript, JPEG, PNG). This "batch" operation saves the exported file to the same location as the corresponding figure file, albeit with the file extension appropriate to the target file format. Existing files are overwritten without prompt. If an open figure has never been saved before, then the chooser dialog is raised to request a file name from the user.

      • The entries in the directory combo box in the Workspace Browser now include the name of the directory and its parent, separated by a forward slash.

  • Version 3.1.1, 12 Dec 2008:

    • • Restored ability (broken in 3.1.0) to open a figure file by double-clicking on the file name displayed within the Workspace Browser.

      • Extended the Phyplot-era "numbers-only" and "annotated" data source formats to support the post-Phyplot dataset types raster1d and xyzimg. Since the "numbers-only" version does not include dataset type information, we make an educated guess. See description here.

      • When loading a dataset for a presentation node (trace, raster, heatmap), the Figure Composer now displays only datasets that are compatible with the presentation node. For example, if you're loading the dataset for a heatmap, the chooser dialog will only display xyzimg datasets, the only dataset type that can be displayed by the heatmap element.

      • Added functionality to the dialog in which you view a dataset's raw data in tabular form. Users can now delete one row or column, the next 20 rows/columns, or all remaining rows/columns starting from the row/column selected.

  • Version 3.1.0, 26 Nov 2008:

    • • Introduced the concept of a "Z axis" that controls how 3D data is rendered in a graph. For now, this applies only to heatmap elements, which present 3D data as 2D color images, mapping Z data to RGB colors. The Z axis now controls the color-mapping scheme for any and all heatmaps in the parent graph (the colormap attribute has been removed from the heatmap node). The Z axis can optionally be rendered alongside any of the four edges of the graph window, and the rendering includes a "gradient bar" depicting the color map currently assigned to the axis. Two color-mapping modes are supported, the original linear mode and a logarithmic mode.

      • The directory initially selected in the Workspace Browser is now the directory of the most recently used figure definition file. This is helpful for users that are working on a set of figures in a selected directory over the course of several days or weeks.

      • Fixed a bug in the Dataset Editor popup dialog: When the dataset format is series or mseries, all 4 widgets appear when there should only be two. Also, the labels indicate that the leftmost widget edits x0 while the widget to the left of it edits dx; but in fact it is just the opposite!

      • Replaced text area in Dataset Editor dialog with a data table. Using a text area to present the raw data for a large xyzimg dataset (eg, 1000x1000) was extremely inefficient and often resulted in an OutOfMemoryException. Note that it is still possible to paste text copied from a text editor into the new data table by clicking on the appropriate button in the toolbar immediately above the data table. If the clipboard text can be parsed as a valid dataset conforming to the specified format, the entire contents of the table will be replaced with the new dataset.

      • Major change: Decided that DataNav will be a suite of applications rather than a single monolithic program with different "perspectives". The suite currently includes two standard Java applications. Figure Composer prepares detailed scientific figures for journal publications -- it is essentially the successor to Phyplot and DataNav 3.0.3. The Portal Builder app does just that -- helps the researcher build, maintain, review and revise a "portal" of scientific data. Each data navigation view within the portal employs a DataNav figure as a "template", so Portal Builder includes some elements of the Figure Composer GUI so that the portal author can edit view templates. The user guide has been updated to reflect this conceptual change, but there's little information in it about the Portal Builder, which has a long way to go. Nevertheless, an initial testbed version should soon be ready for Steve to test and evaluate.

      • Phyplot 2.1 is now "retired"; it is replaced by DataNav's Figure Composer going forward. The Phyplot online user's guide has been taken down.