Main Changes Scilab 3.0 -> 3.1
=========================
The new features of Scilab 3.1 are the following:
- "xgetmouse", "eventhandler" event set extended to click, double-click, <Ctrl> Key. See more details in xclick and xgetmouse on line help.
Warning: Because of distinction of click events, some users' scripts can have a different behavior.
To make it work as before please check and modified test on events as follow:
supposing that button contains the value returned by xclick (left most argument) or xgetmouse (third componant of returned vector) then replace test like:
button==0 by or(button==[0,3])
button==1 by or(button==[1,4])
button==2 by or(button==[2,5])
- Integration of the ATLAS library (specific Windows version).
During the installation of Scilab, dynamic library (Atlas.dll) is automatically chosen according to the CPU detected. See details in the Atlas.spec file under scilab\bin directory.
- Java interface written to allow calling Scilab computational engine from Java
- TCL interface has been totally rewritten (for better error detection and better data transfert). ScilabEval improve to handle synchronism.
For your information you should know that tcl8.4 segfault when running on Linux 2.6 kernels on machines with 2 or more processors.
- Scipad editor
o A debugging tool is now available.
o Drag'n'drop is now supported.
o User settings and text colors are now configurable and saved across editing sessions.
o Find/Replace debugged and improved.
o Quick access in the file menu for recently opened/saved files.
o Creation of XML help page templates and xmltohtml compilation available from within Scipad.
o Identification of Scilab predefined variables and library functions in scilab scripts.
o Scipad is easily localized. Today English, German, French, Swedish and Italian languages are supported.
o Miscellaneous file management improvements: readonly flag, absolute pathnames to files, pruned pathnames display, revert to saved feature.
- Graphics editor completed
o Axes structure totally rebuild.
New axes properties available (see manual and type 'gca()' for a complet listing), z logscale enable, axes inversion.
o Save and load had been extended to graphics handle
o 'plot' macro added to scilab to mimic the "matlab plot" behavior (type "help plot" for more info.)
o 'surf' macro added to scilab to mimic the "matlab surf" behavior (type "help surf" for more info.)
Graphics entities are associated to Scilab variables of type handle. The handle is a unique identifier which is associated to each instance of a created graphics entity. Using this handle, it will be possible to reach entities properties through "set" and "get" routines. The handles are also used to manipulate graphics objects, to move them, to copy or delete them.
Enter "help graphics_entities" at Scilab prompt for more details.
- Scicos block set has been extended/revisited to be more compatible with Simulink one, compiler, code generator and implicit system simulator have been improved.
- Configure adapted to linux 64bit architectures
- Improvement of the integration of Visual Studio Compiler to the dynamic links: findmsvccompiler() and configure_msvc() macros have been added
- The source files have been updated to optimise the compiled version built with VC6 tool
Please note that the Windows binary version provided on our Web site is built with .NET
- Sparse operations and functions like real, imag, matrix, spones revisited to improve efficiency
- Bessel functions extended to work in the complex case (using Slatec routines)
Incompatibilities: The semantics of besseli, besselj, besselk and bessely functions has been changed and extended.
The oldbesseli, oldbesselj, oldbesselk and oldbessely correspond to the old obsolete semantics.
- New Matlab functions implemented in m2sci translator
- Functions to read Excel files
- Font rotation is now possible under Xwindow
- home variable (%HOME%) defined under Windows: c:/Documents and Setting/USER
- New environment variable SCIHOME:
o Under Windows: %HOME%\scilab\SCILAB_VERSION
o Under Linux: $HOME/USER/.scilab/SCILAB_VERSION
- New primitives:
o clipboard (specific Windows)
o perl
o calendar
o mkdir
o rmdir
o copyfile
o sleep
o getos
o setenv
o getshortpathname (specific Windows)
o getlongpathname (specific Windows)
o toolbar (specific Windows)
o hidetoolbar (specific Windows)
o console (specific Windows)
o mcisendstring (specific Windows)
o banner
o winqueryreg (specific Windows)
o xls_open
o xls_read
o scicos_debug_count
Main Changes Scilab 2.7 -> 3.0
==============================
NEW FUNCTIONALITIES
===================
- continue instruction added
- [a(i,j),b(..),..]=foo(..) syntax is now handled
- arpack algorithms for sparse matrix eigenvalues/eigenvectors computation added
- Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm of Minpack used to define function lsqrsolve
- New graphics mode improved
- beta and legendre function added (thanks to B Pincon)
- Scicos has been extended to handle non causal systems description (supported by RNTL)
- Matlab to Scilab translator has been re-written, and extended to current Matlab syntax.
OTHERS IMPROVEMENTS
===================
- Better discontinuities handling in Scicos
- More efficient number parsing (thanks to B Pincon)
- More efficient 3D Zoom (thanks to E Segre)
- Improved scipad, shortcuts, language handling, colorization, bug fixes.. (thanks to E Segre)
- for loop variable is no more removed at the end of the loops
- figure sizes are now taken into account in Postscript export
- Windows GUI improved
- Graphic windows refresh improved under Windows
- Scilab has been adapated to IA64 architecture
- Helvetica (Arial on Windows) fonts added (corresponding font identifiers are
from 6 to 9) (thanks to B Pincon)
- N dimensionnal matrices efficiency improved (thanks to B Pincon)
- logical expressions shortcuts handled in if
- cd, ls, clc, clf, tohome functions added
- functions with no argument can be called without () if called as a command
- make sure the path is correctly determined for pvm.
- add a --tag= argument to libtool when building fortran code.
This makes all selftests pass on my alpha.
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.
Serge Steer on comp.soft-sys.scilab
- minor man page fixes
- make the 'whatis' files used for the online help be lined up in columns
which significantly enhances readability
- minor fixes to the Makefile fragment for building scilab shared objects.
bump rev to scilab-2.6nb2
checked correctly. Can cause scilab to crash instead of printing a warning.
Patch came from Giuseppe Allodi <Giuseppe.Allodi@fis.unipr.it>
posted to comp.soft-sys.math.scilab.
bump to 2.6nb1.
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.
