DataGraph Changelog

What's new in DataGraph 5.3

Mar 25, 2024
  • Use text columns in the Plot, Point and Bar commands.
  • More colormap options for the Scalar field.
  • Easier to create and format the Color ramp legend.
  • New feature to create a QR Code.
  • Improved text centering for Split Graphs.
  • Better importing from Excel.
  • Formatting improvements and bug fixes.

New in DataGraph 5.2 (Sep 27, 2023)

  • Key Features:
  • New single file format option, *.dgraphs. Use Settings to set as the default.
  • Interactively select x-y coordinates from a Point or Plot command with the Region command.
  • Other Improvements:
  • Use relative path names for File Links.
  • Batch Graph Export from a Number Slider.
  • More options in the Custom Legend command.
  • Output a list of outliers from the Box Command.
  • Hover box now works for the Plots command.
  • Add a Text command label at specific x,y locations.
  • Other minor fixes and improvements.
  • Updated Manual.

New in DataGraph 5.1.1 (Feb 19, 2023)

  • Fixed a bug in 5.1 related to pasting in data from Numbers or Excel

New in DataGraph 5.1.1 Beta (Feb 17, 2023)

  • In the slider variable, if you click the integer option you can export figures that depend on this variable. Saved for every value in the range.

New in DataGraph 5.1 (Feb 17, 2023)

  • Built in Getting Started Guide.
  • Easier to draw complicated expressions with the Function command.
  • More built in functions - sd(), sum() and lambertw().
  • Connect to CSV or JSON files locally or online.
  • More options and improvements in the Box command.
  • Constrained non-linear curve fits.
  • Find and Replace has more options, including Regular Expressions.
  • Apply style and canvas settings to graph groups.
  • Added options to the Scalar Field Command.
  • Option to use "Focus Mode" as default under Settings.
  • Other fixes and improvements.
  • Visual updates for the latest macOS.

New in DataGraph 5.0 (Feb 14, 2022)

  • Updated Examples Window makes it easy to find graphs by category, from basic graphs to custom data sets.
  • New Toolbar Icons give you access to all the drawing commands and quick access to help documents.
  • Create a your own Function Library and share your functions with other users.
  • Export notes into Excel documents when exporting data.
  • Hide or Show multiple columns at once.
  • Scale a group of numerical columns.
  • Draw Ellipses with the Region command.
  • Import 4D arrays from NetCDF files.
  • Other Improvements and fixes throughout.

New in DataGraph 4.3 Build 52 (Jan 24, 2018)

  • New Expression variable
  • New continuous color ramps
  • Added curly braces to the Bracket command
  • More alignment options for the Text command
  • Included a percentile calculation to the Box command
  • Specify a chart location in coordinates with the Pie command
  • Specify colors in any text field using the rgb{} text command
  • New color scheme options for the Lines command
  • New color scheme options for points in the Box command
  • Added a color scheme option for the fill in the Pie and Pivot commands
  • Improved manual with hyperlinks
  • Bug fixes and improvements throughout

New in DataGraph 4.3 Build 52.1 Beta (May 22, 2017)

  • Trying to figure out code signing issues on 10.12.
  • Moved from Xcode 8 to Xcode 7. Will hopefully fix the code signing issue on 10.12.
  • Added a subtract option to the Plot Action - https://www.visualdatatools.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1329

New in DataGraph 4.2.1 Build 51.1 (May 22, 2017)

  • Fixes a problem in 4.2 that could lead to issues with saving.

New in DataGraph 4.2 (Jan 30, 2017)

  • New Bracket command
  • Create multi-colored line graphs with the New Plots command
  • Create Violin Plots with the Box command
  • Show confidence and prediction intervals using the Fit command
  • More options for customizing color schemes
  • New functions for the Expression Column
  • New Current Time global variable
  • Improved SVG export
  • Improved importing
  • Bug fixes and more

New in DataGraph 4.1 (May 16, 2016)

  • Main change:
  • Added the ability to group global variables.
  • Added a comment block to the global variables.
  • Changes to drawing commands:
  • Added offset to the Box command, can shift box plots so that you can put side by side.
  • The Pivot command now allows the value column to be a text column.
  • Added two mapping types to the Pivot command when you have a date column - Day S-S and Day M-S. Groups it by the day of the week.
  • Added an option for a rounded rectangle for the Region command.
  • Fixed an issue that happened when you put a range below the grid.
  • Added an option for the multivariable fit - arbitrary : log values. Same as for the arbitrary fit inside the Fit function.
  • The Multivariable fit now allows you to quickly toggle if a variable is used in the fit. Also allows you to use the # column.
  • Added an option to the Pivot command to sort categories for text labels
  • Changed how the Bars command works for a logarithmic axis. Instead of using -∞ as the base (what 0 maps into) it uses 1 as the base.
  • Added two new error bar styles - diamond and ellipsoid for the Plot and Points commands.
  • Added a way to specify the width of a the extra axis exactly. Just like you can for the standard axis settings.
  • Added a gear menu entry to the Plot command to create a Points or Fit command based on the data. Also to the Points command to create a Fit command for the same x-y data.
  • Other changes:
  • Added a method to specify the separator between thousands. Some countries format 1234 as 1 234, others 1,234.
  • Added a new method to define a sub-header in special import - “Does not start”
  • Fixed a problem with importing .mat data files.
  • Fixed issues when you import an Excel document, both when you drag it and import from a single sheet.
  • Added a “New Document” entry to the context menu in the Dock.
  • Added a shortcut to create a map column.

New in DataGraph 4.0 (Feb 9, 2016)

  • Auto-save, Full screen mode, Excel import/export. A greatly improved manual (100 pages).
  • Faster, a number of improvements and bug fixes.
  • Export to tab delimited or comma separated files.
  • Most drawing commands have been improved, but in particular the Pivot and Bar commands.
  • New columns for interpolation, mapping and lookups.
  • Faster import.
  • New global variables
  • New drawing commands (Pie, Region).
  • New sharing options.

New in DataGraph 3.2 (Mar 20, 2014)

  • Pivot Table command:
  • This is a Pivot table with a twist. It combines a pivot table and a bar graph drawing method. If you want to use the table result elsewhere you can extract the columns from the command by using the small gear menu in the top right. Another twist is that you can specify how you categorize the columns that give you the rows and columns of the pivot table.
  • This command is part of the evolution of DataGraph to become a statistical and analytical tool in addition to a drawing program.
  • Hover information:
  • You can turn on a hover (Window menu). This shows information about drawing entries that are right under the mouse, like values of points etc. This should make it easier to view the data numerically as well as graphically. You can toggle this on and off with a keyboard shortcut.
  • Graphs:
  • Can now assign labels to graphs. Good for organization and when exporting images.
  • When you have named and flagged graphs you can export them all at the same time. Just specify the folder, and the names are based on the graph names.
  • Import special:
  • A new way to import ascii files. Useful when you want to import files that have a complicated format. You can skip over lines, use fixed space width for importing, specify mappings that need to be performed during the import etc. And then save this as filters that you can use later and in other files.
  • Style settings:
  • Added a way to specify the stride pattern for lines
  • at the bottom of the line style menu you can now select which of these lines to use. That means that in addition to the default line styles you can specify four new styles.
  • Mask: Added two new options. Can specify a column that should be searched.
  • Axis numbers: The default axis tick marks now has options to control the format of the numbers. Scientific uses exponents for all numbers. Engineering uses powers that are multiple of 3, and has an option to use prefixes. So 0.001 becomes 1m, 23000 becomes 23k etc. Group 1000’s is for currency type formats such as 1234.5 becomes 1,234.5.
  • This is also available for the split axis and extra axis.
  • Commands that were tweaked:
  • Bar : changed this quite a bit. Now it is more like the Bars command. Basically a new command, and there are some features of the old command that are not supported any more (left stairs), but that’s minimal. You can now specify a mask, vary the color based on a column, specify colors for positive/negative.
  • Box : Can use a string column for locations. This will break the values up by categories and put the categories on the axis. Can draw the median as a numerical value.
  • Stock : Can specify the fill color separately from the line color.
  • Range : Can choose between a vertical and horizontal gradient fill.
  • Points : More marker types. Can specify a uniform label
  • Histogram : Can pick a hover label. This way you can see a label for every entry that is in a particular bin.
  • Axis : A number of spaces can now be specified exactly and not just “wide/narrow/...”
  • LaTeX:
  • Added
  • \ell, \R, \Z, \C, \Q, \partial, \lnot, \land, \lor, \equiv, \oplus, \otimes, \oslash, \top, \bot, \vdash, \models, \dashv, \dag, \ddag, \doteq, \emptyset
  • Formatting:
  • Improved formatting for the axis. You can now specify the formatter for the standard axis. In particular the engineering format, which allows you to format 1500 as 1.5k and 1500000 as 1.5M etc.
  • This also applies to the extra axis.
  • Expression column:
  • The expression column can now refer to columns using a path like syntax like ./x, ../group/x /topgroup/x By default the expression column uses a search path
  • Functions: Used in every numerical field, but typically this will affect the expression column
  • Date support hour(), minute(), isAM(), isPM(), dayofweek() : Input is seconds from 1/1/970.
  • second() is a function that takes in arguments like year,month,day or year month,day,hour,minute and returns the epoch time
  • Drawing group:
  • Added a new option to the drawing group:
  • This draws the content without affecting the range. This is useful when you want to draw something in the background by using drawing commands.
  • UI:
  • Context menus for more than just the columns
  • Client/Supplier menus allow you to see which entries use a particular variable, column or command. This is very useful when you have complicated files.
  • The bouncing green arrow. As files get more complicated it can be hard to understand how something is put together. For example when you haven’t looked at the file for a few months. The Clients and Suppliers action in the context menu is meant to address that, since you can drill down and see where things are coming from or if a particular column is used anywhere. The green arrow shows up in two places, when you select a menu for client/supplier, and when you hover over a column selection. Essentially, DataGraph assumes that since you hesitate you are wondering which entry you should pick, and then the green arrow shows up to point out where the column is. The lag should mean that it is not constantly popping up.
  • When you add a new command, column or variable it gets added after the last selected entry.
  • Data table:
  • The context menu was beefed up a little bit. When you control click on a cell:
  • When you control click on the column header
  • You can shift a selection left/right, for example if an import didn’t quite work like you wanted (TextEdit can corrupt some tables)
  • SVG:
  • SVG export now embeds bitmaps.
  • Bugs:
  • Bugs were squashed, and 3.2 stayed in beta for a long time, so hopefully bugs in the new features have all been found and fixed. But if something pops up, please report it.
  • There were some small bugs in the import, specially related to unicode characters.
  • The crop marks in printing are now dealt with better. Before it didn’t remember the settings properly.
  • Fixed issues when you used a mapped Text column inside an expression column.
  • Mirrored tick marks now draw a lot better.
  • Tweaks:
  • A lot of small nips and tucks throughout. Optimized a number of actions, which should be noticeable when you have large files.

New in DataGraph 3.1.1 (Feb 23, 2013)

  • Fixed an issue with the Points command.
  • Improved the mask
  • Several speed ups.

New in DataGraph 3.1.1 Beta (Dec 28, 2012)

  • New:
  • Data Object - Still refining this.
  • Scalar Field command
  • Column - Number From String

New in DataGraph 3.1 (Dec 28, 2012)

  • Opening complicated files is now a lot faster.
  • New drawing commands - Multiple Fit, Custom Legend.
  • Several drawing commands improved, particularly Bars.
  • New column type - Plot Action (integrate, interpolate etc)
  • Improved data importer
  • Bug fixes and refinements.

New in DataGraph 3.0 (Dec 13, 2011)

  • Multiple graphs
  • Multiple masks
  • Paste Special
  • New column
  • Improved Fonts
  • Tweaks and improvements for drawing commands
  • Fixed a pretty bad error related to dragging around and deleting a group closer.
  • Fixed a dependency issue with expression columns.
  • Fixed a paste bug for columns. If no row was displayed and you pasted in a table, DG would overwrite expression columns and not just number/text/date columns.

New in DataGraph 2.2 (Apr 19, 2010)

  • Connect command:
  • Draws a one or more lines between given points. Specify the lines by giving the starting position (x1,y1) using single values or up to two columns, and the ending position (x2,y2) using values or two columns. Can use this for a number of different cases. You can use this to draw a line or an arrow between two points, to draw multiple lines/arrows. You can attach a label to each line and vary the line color based on a column.
  • You can draw multiple lines as well, for example as a Gantt chart.
  • Search:
  • Pressing Command-F brings up a small search strip above the table. This is similar to what recent Apple apps do.
  • The search filters your rows, but does not affect the result. You can still change entries, delete, copy etc.
  • Multi-line text:
  • Up to this point, the Text command was the only way to create a multi-line label, axis title etc. Now there is another way.
  • \n followed by a space triggers a new line. This can be used in all drawing commands, and even for tick marks if the labels contain a “\n ”. The legend command will also allow you to use multiple lines each item description.
  • Other improvements:
  • Tweaked the cropping floater, so that on a laptop, mighty mouse or magic mouse you can use the scrolling feature to zoom in/out and translate the zoom.
  • You can now use date based binning in histograms. If the data column is a date column the Automatic option will pick a date based bin.
  • The date column is now better at understanding international dates. This means that you can use German, French etc to specify the input format. This can also be used for the display format.
  • Added a CDF (cumulative distribution function) option for the histogram command. Standard means a histogram.
  • Works also for the smooth version (kernel density estimate)
  • Modified the magnify command slightly. If the range specified in the magnify command is larger than the cropping region the inset view has a larger domain than the drawn view. To reflect that a small rectangle is drawn inside the magnified portion which represents the cropping region.
  • For the Plot command and Plots command, added a Step option. So now there are four options. Smooth (not drawn here) Line (default) and Step (two options). Intended data where the change is assumed to be abrupt at a particular value.
  • Error notifications:
  • In the interest of eliminating as many modal dialogs as possible, error messages are handled in a less modal fashion with floating windows. So when you for example type in a variable name that will cause an error condition, you get a floating error message right above the field you were typing in. This will allow you to fix things without having to chase down an OK button somewhere.
  • If you click with the mouse the window will go away, but there is also a red dot to indicate that there is an error here. If you click on the red dot. For example if the value is invalid
  • When you only display a portion of the data and drag/remove rows, it is not always clear what columns should be affected. Up to this point, only the visible columns were affected and the hidden columns stayed the same. This is a WYSIWYG approach, but not always what you have in mind. The workaround was to display everything, drag and then hide things again. To avoid that, when there is an ambiguity a sheet drops down and gives you options regarding what you meant.
  • Added a fill option for the fit command.
  • Added more options for the Box and Whisker part of the Box command. IQR is the old style, Min/Max puts bars at the min/max data point, and Percentages allows you to specify where the bars are.
  • The fit command now has a method to define a library of functions. Can add a function and if a library function is the same as the specified function instead of adding the function the menu allows you to remove the function.
  • The color map is now more compact, and shows the colors to the right.
  • Another improvement is that you can now ask it to automatically suggest mask options. The choices are based on the columns that are used as a mask inside drawing commands.
  • Added an option to the Label command to rotate the text
  • When you drag a file into the column list, DataGraph creates a group to house the file. If you then drag another file onto the group the content of the group is overwritten.
  • Added a new font definition into the style settings. This makes it easier to use a special label font etc.
  • New point styles
  • Bug fixes/Tweaks:
  • File importing and pasting is improved. In particular will handle quoted text better.
  • Context menu issues in the drawing window and some commands.
  • Table group colors are handled better. You only specify the color for the top group, and nested groups are drawn in darker and darker shades.
  • Improved drawing functions that have asymptotes such as 1/x.
  • Improved Cricket Graph III import.
  • Automator now works properly in 10.6.
  • Fixed SVG issue with line widths.
  • Added X Intercept to a the linear fit (=-Intercept/Slope) and the x intersection points for a quadratic (X0, X1).
  • More hash patterns. Used to be two, added a finer option.
  • Added Male/Female markers.
  • For the Range command, can now use a color scheme to vary the fill color.
  • New functions - sinc, rect, tri, H, sgn
  • Statistics for a histogram are computed even if the command is excluded.
  • dgraph now makes the -output and -script flags optional. That means that dgraph file.dgraph A B file.tiff will understand file.dgraph to be the template and file.tiff to be the output file.
  • Added more line styles.
  • When you scroll a data view I display the row numbers in a floating window above the table.
  • Added "Gill Sans" and "Gill Sans Light" to the font menu. They are installed in the system and look nice in a graph.

New in DataGraph 2.1.2 Beta (Nov 17, 2009)

  • When the crop floating window is visible can use the scroll wheel (two finger dragging on laptops) to zoom in/zoom out and move the interval.
  • Added a fill method to the Range command that allows you to color the range according to a column. But only if you use a column for x or y ranges.

New in DataGraph 2.0.2 Beta (Jun 2, 2009)

  • Working on an improved version update mechanism.

New in DataGraph 2.0.1 (Jun 2, 2009)

  • Plot fill gained more functionality. There is now a new menu - "Fill style" which affects how the fill is computed, and how smooth curves are computed. "Y" is the old style. "Y ***" assumes that (x,y) is describing y(x), while "X ***" views the data as x(y). If you select "X" the fill is relative to the y axis, or a column that specifies other x values for the same y.
  • The "X/Y Higher/Lower" option allows you to only fill below or above the axis. Also allows you fill relative to the y axis.
  • If you select a different column instead of the x/y axis the Higher/Lower options work relative to that column.
  • Added a "Mask" for the Bars command. This allows you to only draw a sub-set of the bars based on a mask. This is the same type of mask as can be used in fitting, points, etc.
  • The arbitrary fit function has been improved, both the GUI and the underlying numerical method. Non-linear least squares is not unique, and based on the initial condition it might find a local minima that is different from the global minima. This is particularly difficult for sin/cos (which are periodic, and therefore have lots of minima) and for exponents (which grow very rapidly or are almost flat based on the sign). The new method should work more often.
  • Improved the Bars command. Fixed an issue with error bars, and adjusted label positions when you crop the value range. Now the labels are positioned relative to the visible bar and not the numerical value of the bars.
  • When you use labels in a plot you can use an offset of the form "x,y" or "length". If you only use a single number, the direction is computed based on the shape of the path, but the length is specified. This reduces overlap of labels.
  • Can now change the display format for a date column. This does not change the accuracy of the value, but allows you to display the values using a format different from the input format. In the graph above for example, the dates are used as labels and only the month and day are displayed. This also works for the expression column, but there it will also change the column into a date column (which will affect the axis tick marks).
  • Can now drag graphics into the command view or onto the graphic to add them.
  • Can rotate a label inside the "Label" command.
  • More rotation options for a category label.
  • Can now adjust the width of the legend image (the icon in each line).
  • Can position the legend to the right of the graph.
  • Added "Delta X" and "Delta Y" as tokens for the label menu. This is helpful when you are computing distances between two points. This is only available if the end point is a coordinate. This can of course also be used by any of the token fields.
  • Improved SVG export. There were several problems related to SVG export of text.
  • Some random bug fixes and visual tweaks.

New in DataGraph 2.0 Beta (Apr 24, 2009)

  • Can now drag a text block onto a data table to import it (same rule as if you import a file).
  • Added rand(lower,upper) and nrand(average,std) functions to the expression column. So if you want to add uniform noise to a column y, create a expression column "y with noise" and use the expression "y + nrand(0,0.1)" if you want normally distributed noise with standard deviation 0.1. If you use rand (uniform random number) or nrand (normally distributed) a seed field pops up.
  • Fixed an inefficiency that showed up when I tweaked the expression field to compute a few million rows. Might have been noticeable down to a tens of thousands of rows.
  • Can now use nrand(a) as a shortcut for nrand(0,a)
  • Added new tick mark options for the axis - "Angles". Can pick radians/degrees. Affects the tick marks, and appends degrees or pi to the numbers.
  • Changed the Nice padding when you have angles selected. Please send ranges where you think this rule isn't producing what you expect, since this hasn't been refined fully.
  • Preliminary speech support. Added a small speaker button next to the play button. This causes the program to read what is selected in the data table. The use of this is to double check entered data, for example when entering in grades.
  • Fixed a crashing bug related to undo (when entering data)
  • Added a read-along indicator for speech. Highlights the cell that is currently being read by drawing a red circle over the cell.
  • Tweaked the speaking feedback, and moved the Speak button above the column definition.
  • Fixed a bug where you could drag the # column (first column). This is not valid, but I didn't check that.
  • Major addition: Added hierarchical columns. You can create groups of columns, and use that to sub-divide the columns. You can then hide/show these groups from the table. The columns will also show up as sub-menus in drawing commands. To add, click on the new icon to the left of the speaker icon. Then drag the entry around. You can drag entries into the collapser as you expect, but you can also drag the bottom of the collapser up/down. This should allow you to work with a lot more columns without the column selector being too crowded.
  • When dragging columns, the column names are dragged with the images.
  • Fixed a selection problem when the top entry, e.g. "Nothing", is selected in a column selector.
  • When a column doesn't have a name, it is numbered inside the enclosing collapser. So You can have Col 1 in two places, but in different collapsers.
  • Added a "Collapser" to the drawing commands. At this point it only works to simplify clutter, and does not affect the drawing at all. Thinking about at least having hide/exclude buttons, possibly a crop (with a different drawing command).
  • Tweaked the size of the drawing collapser.
  • Fixed an issue with column collapsers + pasting/dragging/sorting.
  • Added Hide/Exclude functionality to the drawing command collapsers.
  • Fixed a drawing issue introduced by a recent change.
  • Added a name field for the drawing command collapser.
  • Fixed an issue with error bars.
  • Fixed an issue when removing columns (selectors got confused).
  • For selecting a command inside a token menu (to select a property inside the command) now display the commands inside sub-menus based on the collapsers. Works both in the gear menu (to the right) as well as the gel cap menu (inside the field).
  • Added a context menu feature to the histogram command. When you control-click on a column in a histogram you can now reveal the rows behind that bin.
  • Big Change: Font style. Felt that it was getting tedious to chase a font change through all drawing commands. So instead, you work through font styles. You can still overwrite the font style and use the old style, but the new method is that you define font styles in the canvas settings (and possibly in the parameter list) and then other fonts are relative that that font style. For example, a Label font style is set in the canvas, and all of the label commands will refer to that font. There are a few things that are not currently possible. The main thing is that at the moment the overall title uses the "Title" font style, and so do the x and y titles. Can of course use a separate text object and specify a different font. Considering adding an option in the canvas setting to do that. Another is that labels for plot/scatter/bars can not be specified by using a "Specify..." entry, since the font selector is just the presets (and fonts defined in the parameter list). This is the indent, but old scripts will not be able to preserve the font. Note that 2.0 files should not be opened in < 2.0
  • Fixed a command line issue.
  • Fixed a legend issue when a collapser was excluded (drawing commands inside the collapser were still included in the legend).
  • Defined a new command block - "Style", and put that above the canvas setting. Into this, I moved the font style definitions as well as line style, grid style etc which used to be in the "Axis" setting. The Axis still has "Background" and "Space for y" which really should be moved into the Canvas setting.
  • Added back the functionality to have a different font for the overall title than x/y title.
  • Added back the LaTeX font functionality. If you don't have the Latin Modern font on your machine, a small "Get" button links to a web page which explains how to install the font.
  • Added size changers to the font mechanism.
  • QuickLook - finally. My plug-in wasn't registering correctly, but it turns out you don't need one.
  • Moved Background from "Axis" to "Canvas".
  • Moved Y Space from "Axis" to "Canvas".
  • Added an action to copy the line width to all drawing commands. At the bottom of the Style settings.
  • Moved the line style to the top part of the settings entry, moved the action menu into a gear button.
  • Added a currency option for y tick marks (only in the main axis at this point).
  • Added currency for x and y in axis, extra axis and single axis (x and y).
  • Adding support for QuickLook type functionality. Select 1,2 or 3 columns and hit the space bar. Not finished, since the graphic should update as you change the selection etc. Want feedback on what type of information should be displayed, if you want to be able to overwrite the template (the template is inside the application wrapper), and what to do if you have a string column. At this time, this is only in 10.5, but I will create similar functionality for 10.4 (different window type).
  • Improved QuickLook for columns. Can now also use the left/right arrow keys to cycle through the columns just like the rows. As you open/close/switch commands things should work. Also, hit space to close the QuickLook.
  • Added a number of templates, based on if the first column is selected or not, and how many columns are selected. At this time don't handle string columns, and do not update columns that are changed.
  • Tweaked the histogram bins. Using only the default setting in QuickLook, and the intent is to refine that mechanism. If you feel that the step size is not smart enough, please send me a note. Include a script with the histogram. Can't always find the step size you have in mind, but I can be correct more often.
  • QuickLook now works for columns selected in the column list (not just the data table).
  • If the first column in a selection is a string column, use bar charts for QuickLook.
  • Activated the small "Open" button in the QuickLook. Uses the current preview as a starting point, for example if you want to tweak bins, etc.
  • Added QuickLook to the 10.4 version. Uses a standard floating window instead of the HUD window.
  • Added a Scratch window. The intent is to add functionality in several places inside DataGraph that allows you to add lines to the scratch view. That way you can for example add various slopes, coordinate points etc into a single text block and then put that into a DataGraph file with a single click (or copy-paste / use somewhere else).
  • Added a simple expression calculator to the scratch window. Useful for quick calculations.
  • Added scratch to a number of context menus, and looking for feedback where else it should be added.
  • Added a "Standard" option in the main font. The intent is to avoid the font window if all you want is to switch between standard fonts that are always present. This reduces the clicks needed to change font and size.
  • Added an option for a binary column to be treated as a date column. Used this in the QuickLook functionality when you select a date column. The numbers are the underlying raw numbers (seconds since midnight Jan 1 1970).
  • For the scratch functionality, add an icon to each entry to make it easier to see where it is coming from.
  • For the Date column, added a number of ICU formats that I try.
  • Optimized function fits for large data sets.
  • Improved the grid lines. Adjusted the dash pattern so that the grid lines would intersect smoothly.
  • Fixed a very bad error, pasting in strings with unicode characters caused the row to be skipped.
  • Can now import matlab binary files. Need to save the matlab file with the -v4 flag, since I read the matlab 4 file format. Only uses the vectors (column or row) and uses the names as column names. The import overwrites columns (selected columns) that have the same name as the variable, and then goes alphabetically through the rest.
  • Tweaked the line style selectors for all drawing commands. By default the plot command now selects a new selection "Lines", which are set in the styles command. The intent is that it should be quick to switch between coloring schemes, and the line width should be tied to the main line style. Can still specify the line style manually, but the default tries to be smarter.
  • The "Style set" functionality in the Style settings view now works. The style sets are mainly intended to allow you to save a publication and presentation version in the same file. But this can also be used to experiment with styles, or to drag styles between files.
  • First stab at "Vary pattern" as a line style. 6 line styles repeated. Will be changed.
  • Fixed a problem where if you specified "No Line" and just a point for a plot, it would not show up in the legend. (MA)
  • Added a "Styles" icon to the line selector and font selector to indicate that this is coming from the styles settings.
  • eta and zeta were swapped. Fixed that. (H)
  • Added div, pm, mp, vee, wedge, ll, gg,
  • abla, subset, supset
  • Added uplus, oplus, ominus, otimes, sqcap, sqcup, sqsubset, sqsupset, sqsubseteq, sqsupseteq, lll, ggg
  • Refactored the fill input. Should be more uniform now, and easier to extend.
  • Allowed the graph size to be down to 5 pixels height/width.
  • Added a "Divider" column.
  • Fixed an issue with sorting when using collapsers. Would sort based on the wrong column if you selected a column to the right of the collapser. Would also have affected hidden columns. (AW)
  • Added a visual cue to the table view to see how deeply nested a given column is.
  • Cleaned up small issues related to the new divider column.
  • Fixed a issue with a date formatter, where seconds were treated as milliseconds (AM).
  • Fixed a column issue which was triggered when the first column was a collapser and you created a plot (which wants to select the first column as the x column).
  • By default, all line widths are now tied to the main line width (set in the top entry). The way this is handled is by calling that line width "main" and all of the line width entries in drawing commands now default to "main" as the line width. When you change that line width, all of the other line widths change as well. This also means that you can specify the line width to be main/2 if you want it to be relative to the main line width. The grid width is tied to the line width, so now the main width and line width change together. Thought a little bit about the name, but it needs to be a short and descriptive name. "lw" isn't descriptive, default and mainWidth are too long. If you have a good suggestion, please let me know.
  • Changed "main" to "pen".
  • Moved the grid line into the style settings entry, and instead put a "Point" definition. The point size is now by default "point" and is a variable defined the same way as "pen" for line widths.Fixed an issue with Bars and date columns (when drawing y columns).
  • Fixed and issue where you couldn't used # as the values column in a lines command. There is a use for that when you want to use the Lower/Upper columns to draw lines but don't have specific locations in mind (so use #).
  • Improved padding for date axis.
  • Adjusted time axis padding a little bit (AM).
  • Improved rendering of functions that have oscillatory behavior such as sin(1/x).
  • Double click to the right of the last column (but still inside the row range) to create a new numerical column.
  • When any of the axis ranges are restricted (cropped) add a pop-up menu in the top left corner of the graph window. Right now it only allows you zoom all the way out for all axis, but I'm thinking about what level of detail to allow. For example, zoom out by 2, zoom out x only etc. This was possible in a context menu, but I decided it should be made more visible.
  • Double clicking on a bar graph now brings up the mini settings.
  • For the bar graph, added a #/4 and #/5 option to allow you to put 4 or 5 bars side by side.
  • Tweaked the template functionality a little bit. When you go through the pop-up menus (on 10.5) you see a preview of what the graph looks like. That way you don't have to guess too much from the name.
  • Fixed a crasher in the template preview.
  • Added a "Space for x" entry into the canvas settings. Needed for rotated labels. "Medium" is the same as the old default.
  • Added sigma for the slope and intersect for the linear fit (RM).
  • For template previews, I now scale the image better (using interpolation).
  • Fixed an issue where I hadn't correctly moved from 12AM,12PM to 24:00, 12:00 (AM).
  • Fixed a crashing bug, which happened when you used a latex font.
  • Fixed an issue with drawing the drawing box with multiple y axis.
  • For Box plot, fixed an issue where "Probability" would not work unless there were other drawing commands that would set the x/y range.
  • Can now drag entries to the trash can again.
  • Fixed an issue with "Display X range" in the fit command.
  • Fixed an issue with "Remove and fit again" in the fit command.
  • Fixed a hang when you tried to reverse the order of columns and selected a non-changeable column (such as an expression or the # column).
  • Fixed an issue where a column could not be selected when there was a collapser in the menu.
  • For bars, work better when the "x" locations are not sorted.
  • For bars, I now rotate the labels to align with the bars (easier to read long labels). I also don't crop them, so they might extend outside the axis area.
  • In the style settings, you can now adjust the box style. Before there were only two styles, either you had a box around the graph or only lines for the axis. Now I changed that into a menu selection, because there is a third option - "Offset Axis". This puts a little white space between the axis and the drawing area. The space scales with the axis font. Makes explicit what some people have done by padding/creating extra axis etc.
  • Fixed a problem where saving a file where the image was 0 pixels wide/high would cause an exception. (MA)
  • Added a new drawing command - "Stock" to draw a standard stock diagram (for one stock). Currently very basic, just open,close,low,high + legend. Suggestions welcome.
  • Fixed an issue with moving the cropping region when x was date and y was a number.
  • Working on a new way to adjust cropping regions. I put a crop menu in the upper left corner, but I'm not completely happy with that since it clutters the graphic. I am working to improve that, and I added overlays (HUD type) functionality for axis that are cropped. Once you move over a cropped axis, a floating window pops up that allows you to move the cropping area, and also change it (zoom in/out). Right now it is very sparse. I am not planning on putting a lot of stuff into this, but am planning to refine things.
  • Fixed an issue with cropping and extra axis (where the grid lines would vanish)
  • Improved the HUD for the cropping areas. Put axis ticks based on the axis setting.
  • Improved the axis cropper when you have joined axis (left/right top/bottom).
  • The loupe tool now works better with the stock command.
  • You can now drag styles between style settings. Before you could only drag non-active styles, but not the currently selected one.
  • Fixed an issue where you could drag the "Axis Settings" around. If you did, it would cause severe problems.
  • Added a "Don't crop" button to the crop HUD windows.
  • Fixed some issues with extra axis controllers.
  • Added an option to range to "Overlap axis numbers" when the y range is everything.
  • Added a "Overlap axis numbers" also to the x range.
  • Should have fixed a print issue in 10.4.11 with certain type of points (filled points).
  • Fixed a paste issue with dates - http://www.visualdatatools.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1252#1252 Switches to a tab delimiter when you are overwriting either a date or string column. (RJM)
  • A new drawing command - Bars. The old bars command is Bars+, and supports more advanced options than "Bars". This command is not complete (in fact, just started), but allows you to easily make side by side and stacked bars (x or y).
  • Fixed a problem for "Bars" (when used on larger data sets).
  • Added patterns to the Bars command.
  • Legend now works for Bars. Can also adjust the solid colors.
  • Fixed the background/foreground settings in the canvas.
  • Fixed a menu bug (introduced in the last beta).
  • The new bars command now works for better for logarithmic axis.
  • When you select categories as the x/y labels for a logarithmic axis, the categories now apply logarithmically. The centers of the categories are at 1,10,100,1000,... The new bar command is meant for categories, so it will use the same mapping if the domain is logarithmic. This means that if you only use a bar, you will not see any difference between lin/log axis, but the difference will be evident if you are drawing anything else on the axis (labels, plots etc).
  • Added settings for the pattern in the Bars command. Can set the background and line width for the pattern.
  • Fixed an issue with LOESS and zoom (SS).
  • Now "Position offset" works for the bars command.
  • Changed things so that the animation will run when you are selecting entries inside sub-menus, dragging sliders etc.
  • Added "Between bars" to the bars command. Currently only used for the side-by-side option.
  • Worked around a "feature" in 10.5 related to the data table. In 10.4, command-click would allow you to select columns that are not adjacent, just like you can select rows that are not adjacent. This stopped working in 10.5, and command-clicking worked just like a normal click (deselected the other columns). I worked around this issue so that it behaves like 10.4. This is useful when you want to use QuickLook or want to delete/overwrite columns that are not next to each other.
  • Now "Between bars" also works for stacked bars, and can be used to get a nice side by side view. The slider also snaps to specific values based on width to make it easy to align bars exactly.
  • Added a gradient option to the bars command.
  • Added a stacked area option to the bars command
  • Added a gear menu to the String column. Beefed up the support for the map functionality, and put that into the gear menu. Added sample scripts to the default template list (inside histogram) that shows how to use mapping to find histograms of string columns.
  • Added a gear menu to all columns. Currently most of them are just to convert between column types.
  • For the gear menu in the standard column added a shortcut to create expression columns. Shows off many of the built in functions, in particular entries like .max, .isum
  • Added .delta to implement the change between rows. In some sense the inverse of "isum"
  • Added a "noise" preset as an expression, and added a slider to the seed value.
  • 3/11: Can now copy and paste drawing commands and parameters. Since I can not duplicate style/canvas/main axis the paste overwrites existing entries. Split X/Y axis are not overwritten but instead added. New drawing commands are added to the end of the drawing command list.
  • 3/11: Fixed a pretty bad error related to copying data columns from the column list. Now this also works faster, since I do not copy a text version as well. If you want a text version, select the columns in the table.
  • 3/12: Implemented the "Candlestick" option for the Stock drawing command, and added a field to specify the width of the marker.
  • 3/12: Added the property .count to the column expression, similar to .isum and .delta in that this is a mapping from a column to a column. The definition is that x.count(i) = the number of times x(i) has appeared in the list so far. If x has discrete values, this is a form of histogram, since it enumerates each value with a running index 1,2,3,...,max value. The scatter plot of (x,x.count) will look like a histogram.
  • 3/13: Added two more column properties sortedindex and sortwith. x(x.sortwith) sorts the column, so y(x.sortwith) applies the same sorting to the y column. sortedindex is the inverse mapping, so if y = x(x.sorted) then x = y(x.sortedindex). These column properties are way to define actions on the entire column, while all of the standard actions apply to each row. Since they don't take up any GUI real estate (except in a reference manual) this is a way to add expert type features that don't get in the way of new users. Feel free to suggest these type of operators. Some can be done already by intermediate columns, such as incremental sum of squares, or counting numbers based on the integer part etc.
  • 3/14: Added an option for x/y space in the canvas.
  • 3/14: Added a shortcut to sort a numerical column.
  • 3/14: Added a menu into the gear menu for an expression column so that you can map an expression column using the gear menu (you can of course always type in the expression).
  • 3/14: Added rotation to the category labels for the x axis (and split axis). To rotate numerical labels you still need to use the Extra axis command.
  • 3/15: Changed slightly how the sortwith and sortedindex column properties work in expression. The difference is how they deal with empty spaces (gaps) in data. Now, the spaces are removed. Also NAN values are masked out and not sorted. But infinity is included.
  • 3/15: Added a "3 Colors" option to the gradient settings.
  • 3/16: Tweaked things a little to improve export to Illustrator (MA)
  • 3/18: Minor renaming - Collapser should be called Group from now on.
  • 3/18: Added Reverse Log for x and y axis.
  • 3/18: Fixed a problem when drawing a function, x was reversed and you used the magnifying tool.
  • 3/19: Updated the 10.4 version (compile error, so the 3/18 version wasn't updated).
  • 3/19: Fixed a letter spacing issue by tweaking the drawing method. Small font sizes should now be drawn much better on screen and when exporting to pdf/eps. Also improved jitter when drawing rotated text (in categories). http://www.visualdatatools.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1252#1252
  • 3/20: Added an option for smooth splines. Can pick between Natural splines (x'' = 0 at edge) and where the slopes are estimated using the next point (i.e. x' = specified at each edge, and computed from data).
  • 3/21: Added a text comment option for the column list.
  • 3/21: Added conversion options to the gear menu in the column.
  • 3/22: Added an option to specify border style and fill style for color tiles (AC). As a side effect, the color legend will move slightly since the offset is now relative to the corner of the box but not the corner of the color tile. This will change existing scripts a little bit, but it is more consistent this way.
  • 3/22: Updated the legend command. More fill options, and if the border is dashed/dotted, the pattern is tweaked to match up at the corner.
  • 3/22: Added a tweak to the Canvas settings. The margins can now depend on the Height/Width of the drawing window. They are used as parameters "Height", "Width" but depend on the size. Added a template script that shows how to use this to fix the scale to be the same in x and y.
  • 3/23: Added a "Legend title" to the color legend.
  • 3/24: Control-click on a column title to change columns. Same menu as you get in the gear menu for each column.
  • 3/25: When you import a file, try to auto-detect if a column is a string column or a number column. It is easy to convert a string to a number using the context menu.
  • 3/25: Allow multiple legends, and can filter which entries you include. Currently the only filter is based on axis position.
  • 3/25" Added a legend name field for the standard legend command, just like was added for the color legend.
  • Fixed a problem with the expression parser.
  • 3/30: Added a new box style to the style controller. Draw a box around each sub axis.
  • 3/31: Addressed a frequent request on the bb. I'm very reluctant to go to a multi-window view because of hassles when you have multiple files open at the same time, and it's not clear that this is better for small monitors anyway. But there are valid complaints with the current layout. For example, the command list can get very long, and when you have to need to split the height between the commands and the graph there isn't much space. So to address that I added a small icon below the data table. This allows you to swap the data table and the command list. This violates the view of "information flow", but this allows you to split the height between the data table and the graphic. This also means that the frame of the graphic is unchanged (until you need to adjust things, but then it's not an unexpected side effect).
  • 4/1: Fixed a bug in the 10.4 version where the pattern menu was empty.
  • 4/1: Fixed a problem with "Exclude" in the extra axis.
  • 4/1: Axis font in the Extra Axis command is now used (before it used the same axis for as the main axis).
  • 4/2: Trying out a new type of error message mechanism. There are cases where I want to tell you what caused the error, but I don't want to bring up a modal dialog box (basically I never want to bring up a modal dialog box). So what I do is that when you enter in an invalid expression for a number/range etc I pop up a floating window. This window vanishes rather quickly, and should not stop you or force you to take your hand off the keyboard.
  • 4/3: Added more entries to the error message mechanism, and am more aggressive at closing the floating window when you click/change things. Trying to find the balance between helpful and overbearing. There are a number of instances where letting you know why things didn't work is useful, but having you click on an OK/Close button is too heavy handed.
  • 4/4: Changed the crop markers a little bit. Now if you specify the size I draw a semi-transparent box around the graphic so that it is clear what gets cropped. This is not copied or exported with the graphic. Also, when you print a graphic, I add the crop markers to the printout. (MA)
  • 4/5: Added error bars to the new Bars command. Added a small toggle button in front of each line (and added a small legend icon). There is also a label menu, but that hasn't been implemented yet (suggestions welcome).
  • 4/7: Added labels to Simple Bars (the column menu was there, but didn't work).
  • 4/8: Save/restore the command view position (i.e. if you swapped the command and data table). (MA)
  • 4/8: When exporting a bitmap, added a switch that allows you to turn off aliasing. This might be useful if you are going to import to PhotoShop and don't want the aliasing that Apple uses.
  • 4/9: Don't do this very often, but I removed a functionality I was testing out. The line style definition in the style definition is gone and the "Lines" option in the line style menu went with it. The idea was to make it easier to set line color themes, but the approach taken by the new Bars command is a better solution to that type of problem. Didn't feel that this idea was fleshed out enough for the 2.0 release.
  • 4/10: Preliminary support for setting the background color for a nested column.
  • 4/11: Improved error reporting if you type in an invalid expression in an expression column. Uses the HUD mechanism.
  • 4/12: Created a special beta version of the help site.
  • 4/12: Added "PNG with alpha" as one of the export options.
  • 4/13: Fixed an issue with drawing a fit function on a logarithmic x axis (CR).
  • 4/14: Tweaked the fit function drawing some more.
  • 4/15: Fixed a pretty nasty problem related to recent image changes, where you couldn't drag a group header for a drawing command.
  • 4/16: Added a "Template Chooser" and reshuffled the File menu a little bit. Needs a little bit of polish, and then it will be the first window by default (can turn that off easily). This is another way to create a file from a template.
  • 4/17: Tweaked the template window. Can now resize the window, and the tiles arrange.
  • 4/17: Template window didn't work properly. Fixed that.
  • 4/17: One more template window tweak - changed the look a little and added a size slider.
  • 4/18: The # column has been a hassle from time to time, since it doesn't have a length and many drawing commands will not work properly for that column - for example taking a histogram of the row number column doesn't really make sense. To make this more explicit, I am banning the row column from a lot of drawing commands. It is displayed in red, and if you select it you get a floating error message just like when you select a string column when that is not allowed. Many commands do allow the # column, and it is possible that I forgot to allow it in some cases.
  • 4/18: Double click on the small color tile in the Bar command to change the color.
  • 4/18: Added a rotate option for the Label command. Rotates the text label.
  • 4/19: Added back the # column for the mask in fit and box plots.
  • 4/19: Added a new point type - Star.
  • 4/20: Added two new point types - horizontal and vertical lines.
  • 4/21: Fixed the line style default for a histogram. Had been accidentally set to "Nothing".
  • 4/21: Added a context menu for a string column to set it as the category label. Done to make it easier to create a Bar graph.
  • 4/21: Added the column property .rank, that can be used in the expression column. Similar to sortedindex, but a repeated value gets the same index.
  • 4/21: Added spacing option to the "Text" command to compress lines or space them out.
  • 4/21: Redid the pop-up slider. It looks cleaner now, and doesn't yank focus away from the window.
  • 4/21: Changed the export settings. Broke EPS into EPS and EPS+Preview, since the preview only really works in Word, and gives Illustrator indigestion.
  • 4/22: The template scrub should now work on 10.4 machines. The template window now opens up when you launch the app, but you can turn that off easily.
  • 4/23: Fixed the "rank" property for a column expression. Ranks the highest number as 1, so it is the opposite of sortedindex. Duplicates have the same number, so when sorted by rank, the rank might be 1,2,2,2,5,6,6,8 etc.
  • 4/23: Added a beefier sort for columns. Added this to the gear menu for each column. The gear menu is also the context menu for the column (click on the column header).