Analytica 4.0 beta Release Notes


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The Beta Testing period for Analytica 4.0 has ended. Analytica 4.0.0.68 is the final 4.0.0 build, and is no longer "beta".

Installation Notes

  • Analytica 4.0 can coexist with Analytica 3.1 on the same computer. Thus, you can install Analytica 4.0 beta while retaining Analytica 3.1. After installing 4.0, a double-click on a x.ANA file will run the model in 4.0. To run a model with 3.1, start Analytica 3.1, and use the Open Model... option from the File menu to select the model.
  • If you uninstall Analytica 3.0 or 3.1 after installing 4.0, it will wipe out the 4.0 registry tree. So, you will need to re-run the 4.0 installer.
  • You should uninstall any beta version of Analytica prior to running the installer for Analytica 4.0.

Upward compatibility for Models from Analytica 3.1

Most models created in Analyica 3.1 load and evaluate fine in 4.0. We hope beta testers will check that 4.0 works and gives the same results as 3.1 -- unless there is a good reason why they should be different. There are two areas where you should expect results to be different:

  • Graph settings: Some Graph Setup options will not transfer to 4.0, because 4.0 offers different (and much richer) graphing options. For example, settings for axis ranges in 4.0 may attach to the Index rather than the graph. So, expect to do some tweaking of graphs -- and to enjoy the new options.
  • 0*NaN and 0*INF: Analytica 4.0 supports the IEEE 754 Binary Floating Point Arithmetic standard: Thus 0*NaN or 0*INF return NaN. In 3.1, the result was zero. If your model took advantage of the old behavior to zero out NaNs or INFs, you may find NaN or Null in downstream results that were not there in 3.1. If you check Show result warnings in the Preference dialog, it will warn you if your model relies on the old behavior and help pinpoint where this occurs.

See Changes in 4.0 that could impact 3.x models for a more comprehensive list.

Changes in 4.0.0.68

(since 4.0.0.64)

General

  • The "Beta build" flag has been thrown. This is no longer a beta build. Beta-tester license

codes are no longer recognized.

Installer

  • In the previous builds, Example models and Libraries would not get updated when the installer was

run and a previous 4.0 build was already installed. We managed to fix that, but unfortunately now it seems that the problem just moved to Analytica.exe not getting updated. Thus, you need to uninstall the beta of Analyica 4.0.0.64 before running the installer on 4.0.0.68. (This seems to be some sort of intractable bug in InstallShield).

  • When you enter an Optimizer code, the description that appears now identifies it as such. Previously is just said "Enterprise". Same with Power Player with Optimizer and ADE with Optimizer.

Manuals

  • New revisions for UserGuide.pdf and Optimizer.pdf
  • Help menu link, "Function List", fixed to go to the correct bookmark.

Graphing

  • Fixed some athethic rendering issues with bars having 3-D effects, where the 3-D bar appeared

transparent when it shouldn't.

  • Labels appearing in the keys were shifted downward in recent builds. They've been adjusted to

align with the symbol again.

  • Fixed a problem where the comparison index would appear as a slicer sometimes, even though comparison values were being used on the graph.

Functions

  • Description of RunConsoleProcess that appears in the function finder was filled in correctly.
  • The matrix Invert() function was, in certain cases, returning the transpose of the inverse. This was corrected.
  • The error message for subscript out-of-range modified to print the offending value with a number

format having full precision, so when you have something like A[I=1.0000001] and get a message that 1.000001 is not in I, it is clear. Without the full precision, it would be confusing when it read "I does not contain the value 1".

  • The error message for Subset(A) when A is 2-D was nonsense. Corrected.

Libraries and Exampe Models

  • Font sizes were adjusted in many example models for asthetics.
  • The Correlated Distributions.exe example model was altered to use the Correlate_Dists library function, removing almost all the guts of that model. The Correlate_Dists function does exactly what that model was accomplishing in a single function call.
  • The Correlated Normals was augmented with two additional methods for generating two normal distributions with a given correlation. In addition to the method originally shown there, it can also be done using either the BiNormal or Correlate_With functions.

OLE Linking

  • Fixed some problems re-establishing OLE linkthat occurred on certain legacy models with pre-existing OLE links.

Previous Beta Builds

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