Main Changes Scilab 2.6 -> 2.7
==============================
THANKS
======
Scilab group wants to thank the increasing number of people who have
contributed to this new version of Scilab, with special mention to
Anders Blomdell, Stephane Mottelet, Dan McMahill
Ton van Overbeek, Bruno Pincon and Enrico Segre.
NEW FUNCTIONALITIES
===================
Slicot based control routines (www.win.tue.nl/wgs/slicot.html)
have been introduced with a special attention
to identification functions, lyapunov, sylvester and riccati equation solvers.
Interface with TeXmacs (www.texmacs.org) a high level scientific text editor.
The editor allows you to write structured documents via a wysiwyg interface
including Scilab sessions and results.
An embedded text editor scipad derived from TkNotepad
(www.mindspring.com/~joeja/programs.html) as been developped.
C Code generation from Scicos discrete models
Blocks defining DAE are now usable in Scicos.
Statistic toolbox added (labostat).
A new graphics version based on objects and entities has been developped
(beta version). It allows to edit the properties of graphics
objects. By default, the old graphics version is used. Tu use the new graphics
version see the help of "graphics_entities".
OTHERS IMPROVEMENTS
===================
Linear algebra primitives now based on Lapack instead of Linpack/Eispack.
Basic functions revised (thanks to B Pincon).
stacksize use is no more restricted.
Hypertext, xml based, online help.
Binary Matlab file .mat loader (loadmatfile) added.
Possibility to customize graphics window event handlers (seteventhandler).
edit_graph, a graph editor for Metanet toolbox, written in Scilab, replaces
xmetanet. It works on both Unix and Windows.
INCOMPATIBLITIES
================
It is higly recommended to rebuild user's scilab functions libraries. This
can be done as follow:
predef(0);genlib('mylib','mylib_path',%t)
gschur and gspec functions are now obsolete and replaced by schur and spec.
Geci and the communication library have been removed. Use PVM interface instead.
Metanet graph editor has been rewritten. Use edit_graph instead.
man pages have to be written in HTML or better in XML but chapters
written in the old ascii files are still handled.
Scicos internal data structure have been changed. Automatic translation
is made when old diagrams are loaded.
Thanks to the scilab folks at INRIA for helping us get rid of 9 more patches!
From the CHANGES file:
Main Changes Scilab 2.5 -> 2.6
==============================
NEW FUNCTIONALITIES
===================
Automatic graphic rescaling when combining 2D plots, axis handling
Isometric 3D plots. Thanks to Enrico Segre
3D plots shading. Thanks to Stephane MOTTELET
Error messages handling
Grep function added
Modeless message box added
Profiling of functions execution added
Real time simulation in Scicos. Thanks to Anders Blomdell
Scicos diagram linearization and fixed point computation
OTHERS IMPROVEMENTS
===================
A more professional licence
Input/Output improved (carriage return at the end of the file are not
required anymore, OS independent ascii file input, handling of opened
files )
More complete mexlib for MatlabV mex interface.
Many bug corrected in integer types manipulation
API improved, many examples given
A better window management under KDE
A better plugin interface (help, demos,...) and new Scilab functions for
building and loading interfaces.
Interactive demos for ODE and DAE solving added
Scicos' GUI improved, customizable keyboard shortcuts added
Default list, tlist and mlist display can be overloaded
It is now possible to draw dashed lines in color. Background now work
with postscript driver. Easiest argument passing to plot2d, plot3d,...
GIF driver bugs fixed.
INCOMPATIBLITY
==============
help and scicos palettes handling have changed.
Fraclab toolbox has been moved to the contributions part and is no
more included in the package
The Communication Toolbox (geci) is now obsolete. It will be removed in
next release. Use PVM instead.
Many thanks to the authors at Inria who, through their willingness
to accept feedback, have helped me remove 39 patches!
Changes to scilab include (from scilab-2.5/CHANGES):
NEW FUNCTIONALITIES
===================
Global variables have been introduced
New graphic mode has been added to allow scrollbar handling (panner
for X Window and scrollbars for Windows).
GIF export format is now available for Scilab graphic windows.
Keyboard events and window closing within graphical windows can now be
captured.
Scicos graphical user interface has been made more intuitive and
keyboard shortcuts have been added.
Scilab Binary files created by "save" are now system-independent so
they can be exchanged. In particular (compiled macros) *.bin files and
*.cos (scicos diagrams) can be exchanged.
It is now possible to dynamically link C++ procedures with Scilab.
A new data type "mlist" has been added.
A new function "genlib" allows users to compile the .sci files in a
given directory, generate associated library and load it. This
function is particularly useful under windows if VC++ is not
available.
C formatted input output functions (printf, scanf, ..) have been
interfaced to scilab.
OTHERS IMPROVEMENTS
===================
Efficiency has been improved using reference argument passing when
possible instead of value passing.
Hypermatrix opreations have been accelerated.
On X Window systems 3D Athena Widgets are preferably used instead of
standard Athena Widgets for a better look.
The "Matlab 4" to Scilab translator has been completed and considerably
improved.
NEW TOOLBOXES
=============
True integer data types (1,2 and 4 bytes) with associated operations
and some functions acting on them have been added.
A library of procedures has been added to allow the use of Matlab
mex-files under Scilab.
PORTS
=====
Scilab has been successfully compiled with Windows ABSOFT development
environment.
INCOMPATIBILITIES
=================
New Scilab "save"d files cannot be loaded by earlier Scilab versions.
A new function "oldsave" has been added to save in old format.
Scilab help mechanism has changed. The $MANCHAPTERS/Chapter is no more
used, instead a Scilab variable "helps" is used.
- a few patches to correctly work with the new version of PVM
- Add USE_FORTRAN and remove local selection of the fortran compiler
- Change DEPENDS on xless to RUN_DEPENDS (not used for build)
is because the g77 compiled code doesn't work properly on several machine
architectures. In particular using g77 on (all 1.4.1 machines):
pmax - can't even compile
sparc - binary sometimes crashes
mac68k - doesn't handle sparc matrices correctly
using f2c fixes all these problems.
This is from Dan McMahill (mcmahill@mtl.mit.edu) in PR pkg/6034.
scilab is a high level scientific math programming environment with
graphics.
[scilab is HUGE.]
The only major thing I changed was the way of creating the PLIST.
