Version 4.1
Post date: Mar 21, 2013 3:07:36 PM
Version 4.1.3 16 May 2013: This release adds functionality to PB4's figure composition perspective.
The figure composer component now includes a node tree view that is docked to the left-hand tool bar. It is very different from the "Figure Navigator" in FigureComposer, but it does help pick out graphic nodes that you may not be able to select on the figure canvas itself because they are hidden or lie "underneath" another node. The node tree is drawn in the fully expanded state; scroll to find any node in the figure. NOTE that the component axes, legend, and grid lines do not appear in the node tree because you can access their properties on the relevant tab of the graph node properties editor.
There are several useful keyboard shortcuts associated with the new tree view. See Composing Figures in PB4 for a list.
If a different node gets the display focus and the figure canvas is such that you can't see the node (usually because you've zoomed in on a portion of the figure), the canvas is panned automatically in an attempt to center the new focus node on the canvas.
If you happen to delete a figure in the figure finder that is currently open in the figure composer, the open figure is not discarded. Instead, its source file is set to null and it is flagged as modified -- indicating that it is a "new" figure that is yet to be saved.
Minor tweaks to improve the appearance of sundry widgets on the focus node property editor, especially under Windows 7.
Version 4.1.2 13 May 2013: This release revamps the GUI for composing figures in PortalBuilder 4.
The figure composition component now has a UI "feel" similar to that of the portal building component. Most of the component is occupied by the figure canvas, with tool bars along the left, right, and bottom edges. The canvas itself is not interactive; instead, a transparent interaction layer rests on top of the canvas. This layer highlights the current focus node, animates focus node selection and move-by-drag gestures in the normal cursor mode, and animates zooming and panning gestures in zoom cursor mode. Most importantly, the interaction layer houses the node properties editor, which lies on top of the canvas and is dynamically repositioned as the identity of the focus node changes. There are "hot keys" associated with most of the tool bar buttons, and pressing the ESCape key will hide the node properties editor when you no longer need it. Not all of the functionality in the old FigureComposer has been carried over in the new release; the figure composition component lacks a tree-like view and there's no "Workspace Browser" (much of its functionality is now in the figure finder component). For a brief introduction to the new figure composition UI, see Composing Figures in PB4.
You can now switch back and forth between the two views in the figure composition perspective -- the figure finder and the figure composer -- via a pushbutton in the top-left corner of the frame window.
Frame window size and location are now restored to their last saved values BEFORE the window is made visible at application launch -- so you no longer see the window briefly at the default location/size.
Version 4.1.1 22 Apr 2013: This release folds most of the functionality in FigureComposer into PortalBuilder, creating a single Java application in which users can both construct journal figures and develop data hubs.
PB4 now has two "perspectives", one for figure composition and one for building and browsing data hubs. You can easily switch from one perspective to the other. The figure composition perspective includes two separate views: a "figure finder" that browses all of the existing figures in the user's DataNav workspace, and the "figure composer" itself. For more information, see Composing Figures in PB4.
The GUI for composing figures was essentially plugged into PB4 unchanged, so FigureComposer users should be comfortable with it. A future release will feature a revamped UI for figure composition that's more in harmony with the layered UI design paradigm in the rest of PortalBuilder, which will be renamed.
The distribution packages for Windows and Mac OSX were revised so that both applications can now be associated with .fyp figure definition files (in Windows, if both FC and PB are installed, .fyp files are associated with FC by default).
Version 4.1.0 29 Mar 2013: This release revamps how the DataNav applications are distributed and offers improved desktop integration on Windows and Mac OSX. It also makes a change in the FypML figure file schema.
(FC) Support for better desktop integration: associate .fyp figure files with FigureComposer; figure file icons in Mac Finder or Windows Explorer should resemble the application's icon; start the application by double-clicking a figure file, or if the app is already started, opening the double-clicked file within it. These are very platform-dependent features. Behaviors implemented on Mac OS X and Windows, but NOT Linux. For Windows, FC has been repackaged as a Win32 executable and distributed via a self-extracting installer.
(FC/PB) Revamped distribution ZIPs. Now there's a single ZIP file download for each target OS (Mac, Windows, Linux). For Windows, the self-extracting installer lets the user select which of the three DataNav application components (FC, PB, and Matlab support files) should be installed on their system.
(FC/PB) Enhanced the automatic axis-range adjustment feature for a graph. Now, the feature can be independently enabled for each graph axis, rather than being "all or none". This change required an update to the FypML figure definition file schema; the current schema version is 13. It is strongly recommended that all users update to FigureComposer 4.1.0, since previous versions will be unable to read figure files saved in the new schema.
(FC/PB) Note that, in prior versions, there was a user preference to indicate whether or not automatic range adjustment was enabled for a newly constructed graph. This preference was removed from the Preferences dialog in this version. Automatic range adjustment is intended primarily for a figure that serves as the template for a data hub navigation view. In typical use, the feature is rarely enabled on any axis, so having a user-defined default for it was unnecessary.
(PB) Bugs fixed: (1) The wizard that edits a view definition would miss a change in a configuration group's name or block size if the "Save Changes" button was clicked immediately after entering the new name or size. (2) After adding a hub view and then changing its definition to include at least one instance configuration group, an exception was thrown when trying to load instance data from a batch file.
(PB) When you switch to a different navigation view via a link in the "Explore Further" panel of the view browser, PB4 will now try to preserve as many search tag-value pairs as possible when setting the initial state of the just-loaded view. This provides a simple mechanism for examining the same or similar data in two different but closely related (similar instance configurations) views.
(PB) Implemented "zoom and pan" interactions to let user zoom in on a portion of the rendered graphic in the navigation view browser.
(PB) Simplified the specification of the target instance configuration in the argument passed to the Matlab utility function dn_vibatch(cmd, arg), which is used to create a view instance batch file and populate it with instance data. When you create the batch file (cmd='create'), you no longer have to specify the name or iteration block size for each group in the instance configuration (arg.cfg), nor the iterate flag for each template place holder assigned to a group. None of these parameters matter when verifying that the batch file's internal instance configuration is compatible with a target hub navigation view.
(PB) Updated the online guide with a new section on PB4, including a brief tutorial that uses a sample Matlab script to build a view instance batch file. The files needed for the tutorial are included in the Matlab support package.