What's new in Analytica 5.3?

Here's a summary of notable enhancements to Analytica and ADE release 5.3 since the previous Analytica 5.2 release. We don't include numerous bug fixes and minor enhancements, which of course improve the user experience is subtle ways.

New Logos

Analytica 5.3 includes new logos and icons for Analytica and Lumina matching those our newly launched website. Here's the new splash screen:

Diagram colors and styles

Default background color

The default background color for Diagrams color is now White when you create a new model. Existing models retain their previous background color -- usually the default light gray. As always, you can easily modify the background color for new or old models: Go to the Diagram for the top model. In edit mode, from Diagram menu select Show Color palette and select your preferred color. The old default light gray is the 4th from the right in the top row.

Default Node Colors and Styles

You're now in luck if you'd like to define your own node color scheme for each class of object. You can also change the node styles, such as if you prefer no borders or flat (unbeveled) buttons, etc.

Open the Outline window
Expand System Libraries and double click Node style defaults to see that Diagram.
Open your color palette
Change the color of each node class in the usual way: Select each node and click the color from the color palette.
If you don't want to show the default black border around nodes, select the node(s), open the Node Style Dialog, and uncheck Show borders.

Any changes in the Node style defaults diagram will affect all nodes by class in your model -- unless someone has already overridden their default color or style.

Example of the Virdis color scheme

To restore a node to inherit the defaults, set its node color or style to the active default. Then it will automatically inherit them from the default color or style.

The default for Text nodes is now off-white, so you can see them if you turn on the "fill color" node style.

We've included a few alternate color schemes you can try. With your model in edit mode, select File / Add Library... and open the Node Styles folder. Select one of the *.anaStyle templates and press the Open button. You can restoire the standard defaults by selecting Defaults.anaStyle.

Clipboard

In Analytica, like most Windows applications, when you copy (ctrl+c) or cut (ctrl-x) something, it goes into the Clipboard. Then paste (ctrl+v) into Analytica or another application pastes it from the Clipboard. Analytica has always supported this standard scheme, but there are now two important improvements:

Ctrl+X for Diagram Nodes

When you cut (ctrl-x) nodes from a Diagram, they now how as marked for moving (rather than simply disappearing). The only disappear from the original Diagram when you paste them into another Diagram. This feels more natural and is similar to how the Windows File Explorer works today.

WYSIWGY for text copies to external applications

When you cut or copy cells from a Table, they retain the format, including selected number format, rather than full precision. When you paste them into Excel, it won't lose any decimal places because Excel uses an underlying XML Spreadsheet format with full precision.

OLE links created in an earlier release will continue to transfer at full precision to retain backward compatibility.

Attribute pane and Object Window

Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks in Descriptions and other text attributes now appear as underlined, active links even in edit mode. (Previously, they showed as HTML-like markup in edit mode, and looked like links only in browse mode.)

To add a hyperlink, select the link text in a Description (or other text attribute) and select Add/Edit hyperlink from the right-mouse context menu. No need to hassle with the markup syntax.

But if you do want to view the HTML markup, select Toggle show markup from the right-mouse context menu.

Editing

Pressing ESC while editing used to act like pressing the red-X to cancel your editing changes. Now it ignores the first press, so you don't accidentally cancel changes. (As before, when Expression Assist is showing, the first press removes the EA pop up). If you press ESC a second time in a row, then it asks before cancelling changes.

Fixed a case where the text selection didn't follow the mouse drag in the text editing area as you are dragging.

Speed of redrawing

On slower computers, the Object window would sometimes take a while to open, with a lot of flashing and redrawing. This has been greatly streamlined.

Graphing

Historically, step charts have transitions at the midpoint between two data points. Now you have the option to transition at the start (left) or end (right) of the interval. When you select Step line type in Graph Setup, an option "Where steps transition" appears with options Left, Mid and Right.

Built-in functions

ParseCSV now lets you update the column and/or row index to match the column or row headers in the CSV data. You define the column (and/or row) index to be ComputedBy the variable containing the ParseCSV call). When you compute, the function automatically sets the index value from the data. See ParseCSV#«columnIndex» and «rowIndex».
Unique( ) has a new «condition» parameter.
ConsolePrint is a new function that prints to the Typescript console, which can be useful when debugging.
CumMin and CumMax are new functions that transform an array that has the cumulative minimum (maximum) so far along selected index.
The function Error() now has an optional URL parameter. When specified, the Error dialog box shows the URL , which should link to a web page that explains possible causes and remedies for the error.
COMArray now has an optional «datatype» parameter giving you control over the cell type of the safe array that gets passed to a COM method.
StepInterp now has an option to use the nearest point. The «leftLookup» parameter was renamed to «use», with options: 'Left', 'Nearest', and 'Right'. The 'Nearest' option also has variants 'NearestL' and 'NearestR' to specify which to use in the case of a tie.