Enhancement Requests for Analytica

Revision as of 21:13, 19 February 2009 by Bwimbrow (talk | contribs) (→‎Requests)

Key for Level of Importance

  • Kind of cool *
  • Valuable **
  • Critical ***
  • I can't use Analytica without it ****
  • I'd pay x for it. $x

(If it's a modification of an existing feature, described in Ana wiki, you might want to add it to that description rather than here.)

Requests

Here's what I would really like to see added to Analytica:

  • PageUp/PageDown shortuct keys to scroll along the X-axis of charts while maintaining the current axis scale. ** OR a full fledged scroll bar. ***

Bob Wimbrow, bwimbrow@sunedison.com

  • When learning to use Analytica, I often have to go to the manual, go to the index at the end, look at the page number for the command I want to know about, then get to that page in the manual (which is not the same page as that page in Adobe Reader). I would like it if there was a command reference that had links for all the commands to the appropriate manual sections. **

Wynship Hillier wynship@hotmail.com

Good suggestion: In the meantime, you may find this useful. Open the PDF User Guide and show the "Function list" page (After "Appendices"). This lists all functions organized by functional groups (also control constructs, system variables, object classes, and parameter qualifiers). Click on any item to jump to the place in the User Guide that explains it. (Alex Graham)


  • I would like to see a function that can do bootstrap estimates of variance for use with a small sample. I can't seem to find a way of doing that in Analytica. *

Pierre Richard richardp@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

(Lonnie) Here's how: Bootstrapping.ana

  • Possibility to save model diagrams as image-files (PNG etc.): It is possible to save graphs as image-files but not views from models. Now we need to take a screenshot first and then convert it into image-file before we can add it to web-documents. ** --Jvillman 22:39, 27 June 2007 (PDT)
    • I've been asking for some time to get improved printing functions. In order to make the models peer-reviewable, there needs to be a simple way to print the entire model in a compact form with a list of each node, its formula, the nodes on which it depends and supports, its indices. Right now the options are really limited and when I print to a PDF it tries to create a new file for every node. [Evan Reis, reis@certuscorp.net]
  • An Undo History function, or at least the possibility of undoing more than just the most recent edit (as it seems to be at present). ** Jgrellier 01:43, 26 November 2007 (PST)
  • When viewing a graph and altering its Uncertainty Options it would be convenient if there was a Preview button, which would allow the user to see the result of changing these parameters. * Jgrellier 09:59, 26 November 2007 (PST) In fact, it would be nice if the Uncertainty options were integrated as one or more extra tabs in the Graph setup options, so you can see the results with Preview. [MH]
  • Ability to add Data Point Labels within a chart. This is specifically desired for creating tornado charts where each low/high point is labeled with the input value, but is also useful for many other types of plots.
    • Ability for user to see the "description" field (or other fields as the developer selects) when inputting data into an edit table. This would provide the user an explanation of the data being input without having to go all the way into the variable. --Cwelch 07:15, 20 January 2009 (PST)cwelch@summitblue.com
  • I'm not sure why an input node for an index brings the user to the model page, but all other inputs just show the input data. I think it's cleaner and less confusing if the input node for an index would just show, for instance, the list of labels rather than taking you to the model page. --Cwelch 07:18, 20 January 2009 (PST)
  • It would be great if you could create a stacked area line graph, rather than just a stacked area bar graph. Bar graphs are a bit too clunky sometimes. Stacked area line graphs are pretty commonly used. Also, it might be nice to be able to create pie charts as well. In general, my only real complaint about Analytica is the limited ability to edit graphs -- often times I'll have to export the data into Excel to create a pretty graph, which I'd obviously rather avoid if at all possible. --Cwelch 07:20, 20 January 2009 (PST)
    • It is great that there is a drop-down menu of inputs readily accessed when defining a node. However, it is limited only to inputs that have had arrows linked to the node. Many times, however, you know what variable you want to include in a node, but it is not readily accessible in your model (i.e., it might be 4 modules away). This requires a lot of hunting around for the variable identifier before you can include it in the equation. It would be great if there were easier access to other variables (not just the ones that have arrows) when defining a node. It wouldn't necessarily have to be in the same input drop-down menu (which is kind of nice since it limits to # of variables from which to choose). It could perhaps be an adjacent drop-down menu that has a list of all of the variables in the entire model. I very often find that I would love to have this feature, as it would save a lot of time when defining expressions within a node. I recognize there is a "find" option in the "other" section (i.e., the drop-down that allows you to pick whether you want a table, expression, choice, other, etc.), but using it to find a variable doesn't work well, since once you go to a variable and select it, it wipes out anything else you've written in the definition of the node. --Cwelch 06:56, 25 January 2009 (PST) **
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