SOFA Stats

You can get an overview of SOFA Statistics in just 3 minutes at:

Fast paced, great soundtrack

The video was made with OpenShot, Blender, recordMyDesktop, and the GIMP. The soundtrack is New Day (E-SHINE Remix) by BertycoX.

30,000 downloads and growing

SOFA Statistics has now been downloaded over 30,000 times and the pace has accelerated in recent months. This is encouraging for the project as preparations are made for the version 1.0 release.

Linux Journal review of SOFA Statistics

Version 1.0 of SOFA Statistics is about to be released. This is a big opportunity to introduce SOFA Statistics to a much wider audience.

SOFA Statistics is already receiving positive attention in the open source and Linux community. Linux Journal, for example, recently reviewed SOFA Statistics and ended the piece with “My hope is that this program becomes an adopted industry standard of sorts, mentioned in everyday conversation by organization workers the world over …” (Linux Journal Jan 2011, Issue 201, pp.40-41). This is fantastic support for the project, and SOFA was also fortunate enough to get on the cover of the Ubuntu magazine, Full Circle Magazine:

SOFA Statistics in Full Circle Magazine

The challenge is to get into the wider IT press and beyond so that people looking for a stats/reporting package automatically include SOFA Statistics as one of their options.

Do you have any suggestions? We welcome comments on this topic. A version 1.0 release is an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed. You can either post a message or email me at grant@sofastatistics.com

A key goal of SOFA Statistics is to help users “learn as they go”. The latest version takes a further step in that direction by integrating on-line help into all the statistical tests. In the example below, clicking on the “Help” button in the Chi Square dialog opens the appropriate page in the client’s web browser.

Integrated on-line help for statistical tests

Version 0.9.24 also makes it easier for users to select the right test, and feel confident they have made an appropriate choice, by adding tips for any tests previously lacking any.

Tips for all tests

The other change is that passwords are now hidden when configuring database connections in projects.

There has been an important bug fix for a problem introduced in 0.9.23 which prevented Excel importing.

Other bug fixes have included:

• PostgreSQL and MS SQL Server now cope with databases which are listed but where a connection is not possible e.g. because of permissions.
• Fixed minor bug in sqlite table name test – now commits when making table and before dropping it so a chance to succeed or fail on individual step. Otherwise, net effect is no change (table added and removed) so no chance to fail.
• Safer reading and executing project and variable detail code in Windows (change new lines to required sort).
• Now possible to run test code in Windows (change new lines to required sort).
• Fixed bug when refreshing default sofa tables but not in the sofa sqlite connection.

This release brings SOFA another step closer to the version 1.0 release expected early in 2011.

SOFA Statistics version 0.9.23 makes importing data from spreadsheets (and csv) much more robust. In particular, it copes better with inconsistent data types in a single field and give the user a choice as to which to use:

Choosing data type

The latest version also has a much more reliable method of identifying and extracting date data from ods (OpenOffice Calc, Gnumeric, Google Docs spreadsheets).

Other changes include:

• If no change to table design when clicking Update, get a message that there was no change instead of no response.
• When opening data tables, the read only checkbox is ticked or unticked according to whether showing the demonstration table or not when in the default sofa database.
• Now handles PostgreSQL databases with different schemas.
• When run in console, SOFA produces much more useful input on progress during initial stages and on any error encountered.
• Height setting algorithm for data editing/display grid now copes with taller e.g. double height, taskbars in Windows.
• More reliable method used for identifying the folder location of SOFA.

There are also numerous bug fixes:

• All lines in multi-line text cells are now imported from ods spreasdsheets correctly.
• Errors when getting project settings file at start return useful message and don’t fail because tried to use msgbox before the GUI application is running.
• Better handling of errors when identifying date format. Falls back to a reasonable default.
• Fixed error preventing message being shown when unable to change database details e.g. selecting a different db in the drop-down.
• Fixed bug in legend of auxiliary clustered bar charts when long value labels. Now has automatic line splitting.
• Correct initial display of csv data when importing if missing cells in some rows.
• Majorly reduced impact of bug when creating report tables using numbers with more decimal points than python displays when converting to text e.g. into an SQL statement ready for execution.
• CSV importing now provides useful error messages if actually an Excel spreadsheet saved as a csv with Excel features preserved (i.e. a faulty csv file). Also copes better with faulty delimiters being manually supplied.

SOFA Statistics 0.9.22 is getting very close to the milestones set for a version 1.0 release. The main changes are:

Scatterplots can be run in series e.g. by country.

Scatterplot series

SOFA Statistics now checks for upgrades if so desired:

Upgrade option

And there is much better support for translations (English, Croatian, Spanish, Russian, Galician, and Breton so far):

Croatian Translation

If you want to help translate SOFA Statistics into your own language, you can get started at SOFA Statistics Translations:

Easy to help with translation

Additional changes are:

• Less alarming message when PostgreSQL not installed on a system.
• Better handling of python version mismatch taking OS into account.
• Better help text for Report Tables and Data Entry/Editing menu choice.
• Warning about changes to default report on version change now appear on top of main start screen not before it.

There are also some bug fixes:

• Area charts get legend back.
• Fixed bug stopping useful error messages appearing when trouble loading first frame.
• Wider config dialog in Report Tables for Row Stats to show all text e.g. Standard Deviation.

SOFA Statistics now lets you make a series of charts by a selected variable. For example, if you have Pie Charts of user satisfaction you can make one for each region automatically. All chart types can be made into series apart from scatter-plots.

Chart series example

Several of the help images on the main form have also been improved:

Improved help images example

Other improvements include:

• Better printing of output reports through web browsers e.g. Firefox.
• Imports numeric fields in csv files as numbers even if using commas as decimal separator (e.g. as in Germany).
• Shifted Help button to top left of main dialogs.
• Removed Export button (from view).
• Changed text in Run button to Show Results.
• Mann-Whitney U now explicitly says it is one-tailed.

To assist with the promotion of SOFA Statistics, a discreet “sofastatistics.com” text is now added to edge of each chart.

Additionally there have been some important bug fixes:

• Fixed page break problem when printing.
• Major bug fix for Windows users with certain user names. Fixed bug in Windows version when username combined with a backslash equals a character e.g. \admin. The bug affected css files and all charts and stats tests.
• Fixed bug when database engine returns non-integers for frequencies e.g. 2l (for long number type) instead of 2.
• Fixed vertical positioning problem for report table and stats select dialogs on 768 high resolutions (Windows at least).
• Fixed bug providing user feedback when problems with css files.
• Fixed y-axis title bug.

SOFA Statistics is very close now to the version 1.0 release.

Version 0.9.20 of SOFA Statistics brings a number of improvements …

• Legend closer to charts and outer background colour now covers the x-axis labels.
• Better placement of y-axis titles.
• SOFA warns user if not enough suitable variables for an analysis – e.g. paired t-test – and suggests a likely cause and solution.
• Default sofa_db row in projects is read-only.
• Better message to user if attempting to connect to an empty SQLite database.

… and fixes:

• Fixed bug preventing projects being saved.
• Fixed bug stopping charts working properly with some database engines.
• Can now handle multiple SQLite and MS Access databases successfully.
• Fixed bug preventing Preferences button being clicked.

SOFA Statistics has now reached the 20,000 download milestone on Sourceforge. And the rate of downloading has been accelerating. In May 2009 there were only 30 downloads whereas in September 2010 there were well over 100 times that. The main area of work at the moment is getting ready for a version 1.0 release. Follow this blog or the twitter feed (http://twitter.com/sofastatistics) to stay informed.

20,000 downloads

With the arrival of version 0.9.18, SOFA Statistics now has all the main output charts working – simple and clustered bar charts, pie charts, line and area charts, histograms and scatterplots. The latest additions are scatterplots …

Themed Scatterplots

and histograms:

Example Histogram

All support charts are also themed now:

Themed ANOVA output

Tool tips now display arrows with their border colour controlled by the selected theme:

Themed tooltips

Additional changes were:

• Charting dialog devotes more space to displaying chart output. Simplified interface design.
• Charts give sensible message if no data (perhaps because of filtering). X axis labels for clustered bar charts and multiple line line charts where legend doesn’t provide the same label.
• Pie charts slightly wider (esp on Windows, which truncates overwidth labels).

There were also some bug fixes:

• Fixed bug in Excel importing when importing numbers.
• Fixed lucid spiral colours to prevent lines having same colour as background (and being effectively invisible).
• Upgrading adds extra sofa_report_extras.
• Fixed bug when filtering means no data at all to display for normality test.

As SOFA Statistics approaches its version 1.0 release, emphasis will go on enabling chart configuration and filling in any gaps in the existing system.