DPlot

[DPlotAdmin]

A beta release of DPlot with several bug fixes and feature enhancements is now available. You must already be running DPlot 1.9.8.5 to use this release. To check the version number of DPlot you are currently running, select "About DPlot" on the Help menu. If you are not using version 1.9.8.5, you can get the trial version from the Downloads page. Licensed users should instead use the link provided to the mailing list.

To use this release, right-click on this link and select "Save Target As". Save this file to the folder where you installed DPlot (default=c:\Program Files\DPlot), overwriting the previous version.

Edit: Beta version removed. Get the latest release from http://www.dplot.com/evaluation.htm

Changes:

• Removed the 16-color limitation for XY plots; all curves may now have unique colors assigned. This change will not break previously saved DPlot files: if a DPlot file contains more than 16 curves then the colors for the 17th and subsequent curves will automatically be copied from the colors 1-16. This change may produce unintended consequences with programs that drive DPlot via DPLOTLIB.DLL: Color specifications for the 17th and subsequent curves will not be automatically set. See ColorCycle command below for a quick fix.
  
  
• Added ColorCycle macro/DDE command. This command allows you to quickly copy a specified number of colors to all subsequent groups of the same number of colors for XY plots.
  
  
• For 3D surface plots and scatter plots, the user-defined color palette may now contain up to 64 colors. Previous limit was 16.
  
  
• Calendar date number formatting may now include the day of the year (Jan 1 = 1, Dec 31 = 365 or 366) by including a lowercase n in the date formatting string. For example, Feb. 25, 2005 formatted with "n/yyyy" will be displayed as 56/2005.
  
  
• A forced change in version 1.9.8.5 - resetting extents and tick mark intervals after using Operate on X or Operate on Y - is now optional. See Options>General: Adjust extents after applying transform to data values.
  
  
• Reference lines input dialog now accepts calendar dates and times for constant X lines if the X axis uses Calendar date or Date and Time number formatting.
  
  
• The Delete points in box command for XY plots was very inefficient for large data sets, particularly those with unsorted X values.
  
  
• Bug fix: Change to version 1.9.8.5 to speed up printing of 3D surface plots with shaded color bands did not work on many printers and on none of the Adobe Acrobat virtual printers. This version should work on all printers.
  
  
• Bug fix: Subtract surfaces command for 3D surface plots might have crashed if the source plot had user-specified extents and "Always auto-adjust scale factors on 3D plots" was checked under Options>General.
  
  
• Bug fix: DPlot sometimes incorrectly clipped portions of 2D views of 3D surface plots with shaded bands of color if user-specified extents were used.
  
  
• Bug fix: Function parser (used by Y=f(X), etc.) returned incorrect results if the function contained a number with a trailing decimal point followed by a close parenthesis.
  
  
• Bug fix: The Find intersections command did not correctly turn off a flag indicating that the curve had evenly-spaced X values when you elected to insert a new data point at the intersection. This might have led to an incorrectly-saved DPlot file: one that specified a constant X spacing with only the start and end values of X stored in the file, which in turn led to the incorrect X values being generated when you reopened the file.
  
  
• Bug fix: Zoom information for XY plots was saved to DPlot files with an insufficient number of significant figures, particularly for date values on the X axis. This problem in turn might have led to a crash when reopening previously saved DPlot files if the saved low extent was equal to the high extent. DPlot now checks for this problem when reading DPlot files and, for new plots, saves those extents with up to 12 significant figures.
  
  
• Bug fix: PI Fractions number formatting sometimes left off a leading minus sign for negative numbers, and also failed to reduce fractions to their simplest form.
  

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[DPlotAdmin]

An updated beta version has been uploaded (March 27). Same instructions from above apply. Right-click on this link and select "Save Target As". Save this file to the folder where you installed DPlot (default=c:\Program Files\DPlot), overwriting the previous version.

Edit: Beta version removed. Get the latest release from http://www.dplot.com/evaluation.htm

Changes since 1.9.8.5:

• Removed the 16-color limitation for XY plots; all curves may now have unique colors assigned. This change will not break previously saved DPlot files: if a DPlot file contains more than 16 curves then the colors for the 17th and subsequent curves will automatically be copied from the colors 1-16. This change may produce unintended consequences with programs that drive DPlot via DPLOTLIB.DLL: Color specifications for the 17th and subsequent curves will not be automatically set. See ColorCycle command below for a quick fix.
  
  
• Added ColorCycle macro/DDE command. This command allows you to quickly copy a specified number of colors to all subsequent groups of the same number of colors for XY plots.
  
  
• For 3D surface plots and scatter plots, the user-defined color palette may now contain up to 64 colors. Previous limit was 16.
  
  
• Calendar date number formatting may now include the day of the year (Jan 1 = 1, Dec 31 = 365 or 366) by including a lowercase n in the date formatting string. For example, Feb. 25, 2005 formatted with "n/yyyy" will be displayed as 56/2005.
  
  
• For XY plots, most input dialogs that take numeric input that is related to the X or Y axes now display those numbers and accept input using the number format for the associated axis. For example, if calendar date is used on the X axis then the X limits of some operation may be entered using m/d/yyyy format. Simple equations that are not a function of some variable may also be used. For example you can enter "2*PI" rather than "6.28...." as an input. This change has been applied to the Extents/Tick Marks/Size dialog, the dialog for Y=f(X) and similar equation-parsing routines, and many of the commands on the Edit menu.
  
  
• Text placeholders ($YMIN, $YMAX, etc.) now use the same number formatting as the corresponding axis, if any. Previous versions always displayed these values using the default number format.
  
  
• DPlot will now process time values in text files (e.g. 3:58:17.2435 PM) down to microseconds. Previous versions ignored digits after the hundredths of seconds place.
  
  
• X extents on the Extents/Tick Marks/Size dialog are now shown as times and may be entered as times if the Time number format is used on the X axis.
  
  
• A forced change in version 1.9.8.5 - resetting extents and tick mark intervals after using Operate on X or Operate on Y - is now optional. See Options>General: Adjust extents after applying transform to data values.
  
  
• Reference lines input dialog now accepts calendar dates and times for constant X lines if the X axis uses Calendar date or Date and Time number formatting.
  
  
• The Delete points in box command for XY plots was very inefficient for large data sets, particularly those with unsorted X values.
  
  
• Bug fix: Change to version 1.9.8.5 to speed up printing of 3D surface plots with shaded color bands did not work on many printers and on none of the Adobe Acrobat virtual printers. This version should work on all printers.
  
  
• Bug fix: Subtract surfaces command for 3D surface plots might have crashed if the source plot had user-specified extents and "Always auto-adjust scale factors on 3D plots" was checked under Options>General.
  
  
• Bug fix: DPlot sometimes incorrectly clipped portions of 2D views of 3D surface plots with shaded bands of color if user-specified extents were used.
  
  
• Bug fix: Function parser (used by Y=f(X), etc.) returned incorrect results if the function contained a number with a trailing decimal point followed by a close parenthesis. Function parser also crashed if the equation contained a leading decimal point.
  
  
• Bug fix: The Find intersections command did not correctly turn off a flag indicating that the curve had evenly-spaced X values when you elected to insert a new data point at the intersection. This might have led to an incorrectly-saved DPlot file: one that specified a constant X spacing with only the start and end values of X stored in the file, which in turn led to the incorrect X values being generated when you reopened the file.
  
  
• Bug fix: Zoom information for XY plots was saved to DPlot files with an insufficient number of significant figures, particularly for date values on the X axis. This problem in turn might have led to a crash when reopening previously saved DPlot files if the saved low extent was equal to the high extent. DPlot now checks for this problem when reading DPlot files and, for new plots, saves those extents with up to 12 significant figures.
  
  
• Bug fix: PI Fractions number formatting sometimes left off a leading minus sign for negative numbers, and also failed to reduce fractions to their simplest form. For example pi/2 might be displayed as 5pi/10 in some cases.
  
  
• Bug fix: The window parameter of the EditSmooth macro/DDE command has been ignored in the last several revisions.
  

If you're wondering, what's keeping this from becoming "official" is a reply concerning printing problems with 3D plots. If you frequently work with 3D views of 3D plots you can help speed this version into release by letting me know whether those plots are printed correctly on your printer and, if not, what version of Windows you're running and the printer model you're using.
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Visualize Your Data
support@dplot.com