Archive for August, 2010

0.9.15 – Eye candy for Bar Charts

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

The latest version of SOFA Statistics finally delivers some visual eye candy in the form of dynamic bar charts. These look good, print cleanly, can be shared easily (anyone with a web browser can view them), and there is lots of scope for further refinement and customisation.

SOFA charts are dynamic and respond when you move the mouse over them. Unfortunately, the charting library (Dojo) doesn’t work well with WordPress, so a static snapshot has been included in this blog post instead. A live example can be found in the SOFA features page.

Static image of SOFA Bar Chart

Static image of SOFA Bar Chart

SOFA Bar Charts dialog

SOFA Bar Charts dialog

Version 0.9.15 also copes properly with upgrades e.g. on top of 0.9.14. You can download it from here: http://www.sofastatistics.com/downloads.php

Coming versions of SOFA will add new chart types (probably Pie charts and Clustered Bar Charts first) and the ability to style and otherwise configure them.

0.9.14 Min, max, range, better csv and more

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Version 0.9.14 has three significant new features:

1) Row stats tables now include min, max, and range.

Min, Max, and Range

Min, Max, and Range

2) Report tables now visibly separate row variables:

Visible separation

Visible separation

3) CSV importing has been substantially improved. User gets option of confirming or changing auto-identified csv file delimiter and encoding. Confirming presence of a header is also integrated and the first 20 rows are displayed in a table with visible cell borders.

CSV import options

CSV import options

The full list of changes is:

  • Added min, max, and range to row stats tables.
  • Report tables are much easier to read when there are multiple row variables. Added pale line between row variables in left-most column.
  • CSV importing has been substantially improved. User gets option of confirming or changing auto-identified csv file delimiter and encoding. Confirming presence of a header is also integrated and the first 20 rows are displayed in a table with visible cell borders. The import is more forgiving of some faults e.g. missing items at the end of a row. These are automatically filled with empty strings. When errors are encountered in csv import SOFA tells user the relevant line number. Also made other minor improvements to (error) messages from csv importing.
  • Added Filter button next to Table dropdown to make filtering functionality of SOFA more accessible.
  • Much simpler installation for Ubuntu/Linux Mint users. No additional steps required now that SOFA has started using gtk-webkit.
  • ANOVAs and similar group by analyses now cope with massive tables when selecting unique values to show in group by drop downs.
  • Appropriate messages are shown to users when large tables underlying analyses are about to be run. The user can opt out.
  • Changed default for Anova from precision to speed.
  • Better messages when chopping group by values shown.
  • If SOFA has been opened by an incompatible version of Python it will give a useful message and leave a helpful text file behind with instructions for fixing the problem.
  • Better messages when Chi Square warnings about number of rows, cols, or cells.
  • Better tool tip for setting MS SQL Server host e.g. my-svr-01, 1433.
  • Added minor improvement to tool tips for data tables. It now always shows labelled value if possible and read only status as suffix as appropriate.
  • Created more robust startup process with better error messages. Users also able to run test code (e.g. sent by the SOFA developer) and get result. Great for diagnosis.
  • Overhauled start code so checks version if possible, updates version, and makes a recovery folder if not current.

There are also some important bug fixes:

  • Fixed bug where only one of multiple databases shown e.g. for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MS SQL Server.
  • Fixed bug stopping MS SQL Server 2005 from opening.
  • MS SQL Server 2000 will now open successfully, even if master is not the default table.
  • Fixed bug with Chi Square on MySQL caused by dividing Decimal data type by float.
  • Hourglass starts earlier when saving filter options.
  • Fixed minor bug with display tool tips in read-only tables.
  • Now using gtk-webkit inside wxpython. Now displays background images in tables properly in Ubuntu/Linux Mint. Can start working on all output charting.