DPlot

[DPlotAdmin]

A quick change brought on by a user query concerning linking data from MS Access. You can get the latest from www.dplot.com/beta/dplotsetup.exe. [Edit: Link changed to normal download.] Download this file to a temporary folder and run it to install DPlot. Licensed users should install to the same folder where DPlot currently resides (by default that's c:\program files\dplot).

Paste, Paste Special, and Insert Link commands will now allow the incoming data to be preceded by a line of column headings. For 3D data, column headings are used for the X, Y, and Z axis labels. For XY plots, headings will be used for the Y axis label (1 column), X and Y axis labels (2 columns), or the X axis label and legend if more than 2 columns are present. This change was made primarily to accommodate copying data from MS Access, which insists on including table headings regardless of how you copy the data. This feature will of course be useful for other applications as well. The Help topic for the Insert Link command has been updated to include information on MS Access.

Following is a complete list of all other changes since version 1.8.3.

Changes:

• 3D Scatter plots. Click here for an example. Currently there are a few limitations that will likely be improved upon in subsequent releases: 1) The size of the circles used for each data point is fixed at 0.1 inches, and the symbol will always be a circle, 2) as with other 3D plots, the input must consist of at least 3 non-collinear points that have different X and/or Y values. However, unlike previous versions you may have 3D points that have equal X,Y values. In previous versions DPlot would always delete any points with identical X and Y coordinates. In this version, all points are retained, but in the case of identical X,Y coordinates only the point with the maximum Z value is considered for all of the other 3D plot options. All points are used for 3D scatter plots.
  
• Added fact (factorial), erf (error function), and cdf (cumulative distribution function) to the function parser (used by Y=f(X), et. al.)
  
• Added Polar Plot Options menu command. This replaces the Units command for polar plots and also allows you to specify the orientation of the plot (0 degrees at the top of the plot and/or clockwise angles) and allows you to force polar plots to be circular w/o using the Extents/Tick Marks/Size command. Added PolarPlotStyle macro/DDE command to make these same settings.
  
• Point labels (added with Text>Label points menu command) may now be included on polar plots.
  
• Negative angles are now allowed as input for polar plots.
  
• If the currently active document window is maximized, then new document windows (created by the File>New command, for example) will also be maximized.
  
• Support for unformatted binary files has been expanded to allow multiple curves in the same file.
  
• "Smoothing window" parameter of the Edit>Smooth command and "Interval" and "Interpolation method" parameters of the Edit>Equal Intervals command are now persistent. (Previous versions always reset these controls to default values.)
  
• Added "None" number formatting, which is useful for creating blank graph paper. See the modified "How do I?" Help topic on creating graph paper for a simple macro that creates blank log-log paper.
  
• Title lines for all types of plot are now centered horizontally on the plot, not including axis labels or other objects outside the plot box. In previous versions the title lines were centered on the output width, which led to inconsistencies between the display and metafiles.
  
• In previous versions of DPlot, the legend and notes were forced to be on the screen. Unfortunately this led to inconsistent placement between what was seen on the screen and printed or copied to metafiles if, for example, the legend was placed well outside of the plot. In this version the legend and notes are no longer restricted in this way, so that you should get consistent placement on all output devices. This creates a new problem, though: it is now possible to resize a plot such that the legend or notes are completely off the screen and inaccessible. A new menu command (Text>Force legend/notes on screen) has been added to move those items such that they are completely visible on the display. This command is not persistent; it only changes placement at the time you use it.
  
• Insert Link menu command is now quite a bit more useful, and in general the functionality of linking data from other applications has been improved. The Insert Link dialog now shows recently used links, which may be selected and re-used. There's also a Current links list which shows all of the links for the active document and allows you to unlink data. Most importantly, DPlot now behaves correctly with multiple links in the same document. Thanks to Raymond Delaforce for all of the suggestions.

Bug fixes

• Corrected a bug with Text>Label Points command. Selecting a curve with only 1 point caused DPlot to crash. Thanks to David Hoyle for pointing out the problem.
  
• You were not allowed to draw a lone contour line on 2D contour plots. If you attempted to set the number of intervals to 1 programatically, or if you set the low and high contour levels to be equal, DPlot crashed. Thanks, Ranald Engelbeck.
  
• Mouse cursor clipping was fouled up on dual monitor displays after operations that restricted cursor movement (Zoom, List Peaks in Range, et. al.)
  
• Color settings read from a preferences file were assigned to the default color palette (used in new plots), rather than the currently active document.
  
• Removing the first notation (Text>Add/Edit Note) by deleting all of the text in the note (as opposed to clicking the Remove button) caused DPlot to crash.
  
• It was possible to set font heights for the various text entries to 0, which didn't cause serious problems on plots to the display but screwed up metafile plots rather badly.
  
• Symbols used in the legend were clipped if the legend was placed outside the plot.
  

Comments, suggestions, and criticisms are, as always, welcome.
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