What's new in Analytica 6.5?

(Redirected from Analytica 6.5)

The current release is Analytica 6.4. This page is describes new features in the next Analytica release.

The Analytica 6.5 release introduces the Analytica A.I. Assistant.

Analytica 6.5 is currently in Beta Testing. If have have an active subscription license, we invite you to try it out from the Beta Tester Page.

Assista, the Analytica A.I. Assistant

An exciting natural language assistant that can help with things like:

  • How do you do X in Analytica?
  • Can you do it for me?
  • Where can I find more info on «Analytica topic»
  • Write this description for me
  • Show me «description of something or some result in the model»

and much more, with increasing capabilities expected in the future. Here is a 7 minute unpolished demo video with some examples.

As of this build, an Analytica Enterprise or Optimizer license is required to use Assista. We intend to fix this shortly and make it available to Professional and Free users in a future build.

Web service integration

The ReadFromURL function, used to call external web services APIs, has been significantly extended to support:

  • Asynchronous HTTP communications
  • Ctrl+Break to interrupt it and Windows redraw events while waiting for a slow server response.
  • Websocket connections.
  • Streaming responses (Server-Sent Events, SSE).

Built-in functions

  • New «warningNumber» parameter to IgnoreWarnings
  • New system variable Sys_TopLevelModule
  • A new «silent» flag to ConsolePrint.
  • Flag to MakeJSON to render a local index name with a dot.
  • New CopyToClipboard function
  • The 'SHA-1' option was added to TextCharacterEncode.
  • The Keelin (MetaLog) distribution now uses a different (superior) basis ordering.
    The paper [Baucells, Chrisman and Keelin, "On the properties of the Metalog distribution", to appear] shows that the new ordering has superior numerical properties, and thus will become the new standard once the paper appears. The old and new basis orderings are the same when there are six or fewer terms, and the same distribution results when there is an even number of terms. All the Keelin distribution functions accept a new flag (flag:64) to force the legacy ordering. Alternatively, if you need your model to produce identical results, you can also set RandomLegacyRelease to 60499 or earlier. If you don't need to exactly match results that use the legacy ordering, use the new ordering (the default).

Namespaces

This is an experimental (preview) and incomplete feature.

It is possible to define a new Namespace for each module and library to prevent clashes when they contain identifiers that are the same as those in another module. Namespaces also let the modeler specify which object identifiers are public -- i.e. may be accessed from outside the module -- or private. This is an incomplete feature, and so not an official part of the 6.5 release. But it is used by the A.I. assistant client to keep its identifiers separate from your model's. See Namespaces.

Customizing DTA's UI

Advanced library authors can take advantage of some new customization features.

  • Allows browse-only modules that aren't filed modules more....
  • Allows a library to add a menu item or a toolbar button.
  • RegisterSelectionChangeHandler - a mechanism to track changes to what is selected in the UI.

Diagrams

  • You can group nodes on a diagram so that they select as a single unit.
  • When drawing an arrow or dragging a node from one diagram window to another, it brings the other diagram window to the front (temporarily) as your mouse hovers over it. This allows you to access objects or portions of the diagram that were occluded by other windows during the drag operation, reducing the need to rearrange windows to connect objects in different diagrams.

Misc

  • Less flashing during diagram redraws.
  • The NameSize default changed from 20 to 40. This is the Preferences setting that controls the maximum number of characters in an identifier that is auto-generated from a title.
  • A new digital signature provides a way for Lumina-internal developers to release a library or model that calls Enterprise Edition-only functions, but can still be used from Free or Professional.
  • The Object qualifier in function Parameters is now deprecated, and a new Alias qualifier replaces it. The Alias qualifier serves the same purpose as Object, but repairs an inconsistency (i.e., bug) in the semantics of Object, which we can't directly repair without introduce a breaking backward compatibility change.
  • There is also a new AliasEx qualifier, which behaves the same as Alias when the argument in the call is the identifier of a global object, but behaves like handle atom when the call passes an expression or an identifier surrounded by parentheses.
  • New images for the icons in the toolbar.
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