Version 4.6

Post date: Jan 1, 2015 12:13:31 AM

Version 4.6.2, 24 Mar 2015. A new feature and various changes/bug fixes for Figure Composer. Also updated DataNav Viewer to support rendering of bar plots (introduced in v4.6.1) and scatter/bubble plots (introduced in this release).

• New feature in FC: Scatter and "bubble" plots. While it was already possible to create a scatter plot in prior versions of FC, this release introduces a new data presentation node specifically designed to render X-Y scatter plots or so-called bubble plots, in which the size and/or fill color of each symbol at (X,Y) can vary based on the value of a third, "Z" coordinate. Obviously, bubble plots are intended to represent 3D data sets {(X,Y,Z)} in a 2D graph. We introduced a new data format, xyzset, to represent a simple, relatively small list of data points in 3D space. When the data source for the new scatter plot node is xyzset, then the plot can be rendered in any of four display modes: scatter, sizeBubble, colorBubble, or colorSizeBubble.

  • You can now specify a background fill color for the figure. Normally the background fill will be fully transparent -- meaning the background is not filled at all, which was the case for all figures created by previous versions of FC. This new feature might come in handy when preparing a figure for a slideshow presentation in which you want the background to be a dark color and much of the text and axis lines to be white or a very light color.

  • Added support for two more color maps: tropic (indigo to green to yellow) and reversetropic.

  • Added optional id attribute to label, textbox, and graph nodes. Uniquely identifies the graphic node within figure; will allow changing selected figure content programmatically.

  • The FIG-to-FypML import engine and matfig2fyp() have been updated to handle the import of scatter and bubble plots generated by Matlab's scatter() function. Note that, when both the size and color of the markers vary in a Matlab bubble plot, the underlying Z-coordinate data is derived from the Matlab scatter-group object's size data rather than the color data -- so replication of the original bubble plot is unlikely.

  • The FIG-to-FypML import engine was modified to translate TeX-encoded special characters in any text labels within a Matlab figure, including axis and tick mark labels. Any characters not supported in FypML get translated to '?'. Note that the import engine will NOT recognize any other TeX constructs in a Matlab string; such constructs will simply be passed over as plain text.

  • Updated the Matlab support functions dn_vibatch(), putdata2fyp(), getdatanavsrc(), and putdatanavsrc() to handle the new data set format, xyzset. 

  • Introduced new Matlab support function put2fyp(), an extension of putdata2fyp(). In addition to injecting a data set into an existing FypML figure, put2fyp() lets you replace the text content of a particular label or textbox node, or replace an entire graph in the figure. It locates the target label, textbox or graph object via the new id attribute. The putdata2fyp() function remains available to avoid breaking existing user scripts, but it will be deprecated in a future release.

  • NOTE: Since this release introduced changes to the FypML schema, the version was incremented to 18. Prior versions of FC will not be able to open FypML files written by version 4.6.2.

  • Other: (1) Revised file-save dialog to use a text area to display error message in the event that a figure file could not be saved. (2) Tick labels on an X-axis below the graph are now aligned to ensure they share a common baseline (this matters only when using custom, alphabetic labels like "b", "g", "W", "e"). (3) Bug fix: If the string contents of a text box exceeded roughly 240 characters, the exported Postscript version of the figure failed to print. (4) Added File|Revert command (shortcut for closing a file without saving, then reopening it). (5) Miscellaneous cosmetic changes.

  • Compatibility with Matlab R2014b. This Matlab release introduced a major overhaul to its figure graphics. It included significant changes in the Handle Graphics infrastructure which necessitated an update to matfig2fyp(), savefigasis(), and the FIG-to-FypML import engine. The updates have been tested against both Matlab R2013a and R2014b; all Matlab figures used for testing purposes are successfully imported directly into FC, and all are successfully converted by matfig2fyp() running in either Matlab release.

Version 4.6.1, 04 Feb 2015. Introduces support for specifying basic information on the source/provenance of archives in a DataNav portal (at the level of individual hub navigation views or individual archived figures). The release also includes a few new features in Figure Composer.

• • DataNav Builder and Server have been modified to include two additional pieces of descriptive information for each navigation view in a data hub: source location and source documentation. The former should accurately describe the location of source files needed to reproduce the hub view and its instance data, while the latter should contain instructions on how to regenerate the view, and any other information to help verify the provenance of the view and its data. The same information fields have been added to the definition of each figure in a figure archive. In an existing portal, these fields are initialized to "Unspecified".

  • New feature in FC: Custom tick mark labels. You can now specify custom, non-numeric labels for a tick mark set. When custom labels are defined, they are applied to the tick marks in the order listed, replacing the standard numeric labels. If there are more labels than tick marks, the extra labels are unused; if there are too few, they are "recycled" until all tick marks are labeled. The custom labels are positioned and styled in the same manner as numeric labels.

  • New feature in FC: Bar plots. The bar plot node is a new type of data presentation node. It renders a small data collection {X: Y1 Y2 Y3...} (mset or mseries data formats) as a typical bar plot. Each member set {X: Yn} in the collection is represented by one like-colored group of bars in the bar plot. It supports vertical or horizontal, grouped or stacked layouts. You can specify a fill color and legend label for each bar group, or let FC choose them automatically.

  • The FIG-to-FypML import engine and matfig2fyp() have been updated to handle the import of a typical bar plot generated by Matlab's bar() function. Support for importing custom tick labels was also added.

  • Axis tick marks in FC - some "tweaks": (1) Modified FIG-to-FypML import engine and matfig2fyp() to do a better job reproducing tick marks and labels on a logarithmic axis. (2) If the tick label format is integer only ("1") and the tick mark value is less than 1 but greater than or equal to 0.001, the generated tick label now shows at least one significant digit instead of displaying it as "0". If the tick value is less than 0.001 and the axis is NOT logarithmic, then the label is set to "0". (3) Scientific notation -- e.g., "1.7e-4" -- is now used in a couple outlier use cases: when the tick value is larger than 1.0e6, or when the value is smaller than 0.001 and the axis is logarithmic.

  • NOTE: Since the new features required changes to the FypML schema, the version was incremented to 17. Prior versions of FC will not be able to open FypML files written by version 4.6.1.

Version 4.6.0, 07 Jan 2015. Introduces support for multi-user collaboration on the construction and maintenance of archives on a DataNav portal. The release also includes some minor changes to Figure Composer.

• • DataNav Builder and Server have been modified to support the notion of a "collaborators list" for each archive mounted on a portal server. An archive collaborator has permission (from the owner) to checkout the archive and submit revisions to it. However, a collaborator cannot unmount the archive from the portal, toggle its public/private flag, nor add or remove another portal user as a collaborator on the archive; only the archive owner may perform these tasks. The owner may also elect to transfer ownership of the archive to any other registered portal user. All of these privileged actions require that the archive owner login to the portal through the Builder app. 

  • Minor changes to the hub browser component in Builder: (1) A warning icon (with pop-up message) appears on the hub's entry-point view when the hub is mounted on a portal, is marked as public, and contains at least one navigation view that is not reachable from the entry-point. Such views will never be seen by a user exploring the hub in the DataNav Viewer app, since Viewer does not expose the hub's navigation map explicitly. (2) Removed the Edit|Open preview command. Instead, simply click on the blue "i" icon in the top-left corner of the currently selected navigation view to raise a "quick-look" preview. (3) The animated "add view link" gesture may now be cancelled by simply clicking anywhere on the navigation map canvas that is not occupied by a view thumbnail.

  • "Pop-up" title editor in Figure Composer. Double-click on a label node in the figure canvas and a small window will "pop-up" so that you can change the label string "in place". You can do the same with an axis node to change the axis label, or with a text box node to change the text box's string content. In all of these cases, the pop-up editor is updating the FypML title attribute of the node. In fact, you can update the title of just about any graphic element via the pop-up editor by double-clicking on the node in the figure navigator.

  • Whenever you mouse down on the figure canvas in FC, the keyboard focus is returned to the figure navigator (the canvas itself never holds the keyboard focus) so that the standard keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-C/X/V will perform graphic object copy/cut/paste operations rather than text copy/cut/paste. In prior versions, if you clicked on the current focus node in the canvas, the keyboard focus was not restored to the figure navigator, leading to unexpected behavior.

  • Added a right-click "context menu" to the figure canvas in FC; it exposes many of the same commands available in the Edit and View menus.