What's new in Analytica 6.5?

This page lists new features in release 6.5 (the current release) of Analytica (including ACP and ADE) since the previous Analytica 6.4 release.

Analytica normally prompts you to download and install the new release the next time you run it. If not, you can download it from Renew, upgrade or download.

Assista, the Analytica A.I. Assistant

Assista artificial intelligence assistant is the primary new feature in 6.5. Assista is a powerful co-pilot that helps you build and refine models, answer questions, and navigate Analytica with natural language interaction. It can answer questions like:

• What does this model do?
• 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
• Help me build a model to do <x>

and much more. It uses ChatGPT and other large language models (LLM) from OpenAI. Like all LLMs, it can be amazingly helpful, but is sometimes confused or wrong. We expect to continually improve its performance. Here is a 7 minute unpolished demo video with some examples.

Diagrams

• 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.
• There is a new gear-shaped node hover button that opens the Node Style dialog.
• You can group nodes on a diagram so that they select as a single unit.

Web services

The ReadFromURL function lets Analytica models call external web services APIs. It has been significantly extended. It lets you access web applications, including online databases, Google docs, Salesforce, and much much more. New features include:

• Asynchronous HTTP communications
• Ctrl+Break to interrupt it 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' and 'SHA-256' options were 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).

• Added two new options for GetProcessInfo: 'Application rect' and 'Desk rect'.

Customizing DTA's UI

Advanced library authors can take advantage of some new features to customize the Analytica User Interface:

• You can set modules as browse-only even if they are not filed modules more....
• You can add a custom option to the Analytica menus or a button to the toolbar button. This is still an experimental feature details...
• RegisterSelectionChangeHandler - a mechanism to track changes to what object is selected or which Window is active in the UI.

Styles and themes

These are ways to change the default node and graph colors and other node style and graph defaults.

• There are three new Anastyle templates: Lumina.anastyle, Lumina_Dark.anastyle, and Classic.anastyle.
• The new Themes Library is now in the Libraries folder. It helps you tailor your own custom diagram and graph styles and lets you create your own .anastyle files.

Namespaces

This is an experimental preview and incomplete feature.

You can define a new Namespace for each module and library to prevent clashes with identifiers that are the same as those in another module. Namespaces also let you 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.

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 editions.
• 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.
• The new AliasEx qualifier 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.
• Added subattributes NodeInfo::truncationLength, NodeInfo::lock, NodeInfo::duplicateOnDrag, NodeInfo::noMultiSelect and NodeInfo::adjToText.
• Removed Ctrl+K as a keyboard shortcut for Delete cells.
• Added Ctrl+K as a keyboard shortcut for Add/Edit hyperlink (to match the Google Docs shortcut). The previous Ctrl+Alt+H shortcut still works.
• You can now manually control (e.g., increase) the space allotted on a plot for vertical textual axis labels. The default heuristics for selecting this width weighs many factors, and may chose to truncate some labels in order to leave more space for the actual plot. To override, drag the hover handle that appears at the origin to the right.