Archive for October, 2010

0.9.21 adds chart series and visual improvements

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

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

Chart series example

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

Improved help images example

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.

Better chart layout & key bug-fixes in 0.9.20

Monday, October 11th, 2010

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.

Configurable charting in SOFA Statistics 0.9.19

Monday, October 4th, 2010

Most of the SOFA charting functionality is now in place and it is now possible for users to configure their output charts. In addition to being able to select theming, the following options are currently available:

Simple bar charts and pie charts can now be sorted (unsorted, by label, by frequency, by descending frequency).

Sortable chart example

Sortable chart example

Users can include or exclude display of percentages in bar, line, and area chart tooltips.

Hiding percentage in tool tips

Hiding percentage in tool tips

Axis titles on charts are now bold and better positioned vertically to distinguish more easily from axis labels.

Better axis titles

Better axis titles

Another change is that histogram have more human-friendly bin sizes where possible e.g. 10 to <20 rather than 13.8 - 14.5 etc. [caption id="attachment_493" align="aligncenter" width="188" caption="Better histogram bins"]Better histogram bins[/caption]

Analysis dialogs have been simplified by shifting some settings into a separate dialog.

Simplified interface

Simplified interface

Chart type buttons have been restyled and it is easier to identify which button has been selected across operating systems:

Refreshed chart-type buttons

Refreshed chart-type buttons

The other main change to charting is that long chart labels are now split into lines.

Split line value labels

Split line value labels

Additional changes include:

  • Scatterplots have option of removing dot border (useful if almost all values are overlapping other values e.g. in a line).
  • Added hour glass for display of chart output (can matter for scatterplots on slower machines).
  • Existing default report is archived on upgrade to ensure any new chart content displays correctly in the default output.

There is one very important bug fix – 0.9.18 introduced a bug stopping two types of statistical test output from being generated. This was easily corrected.

Additional bug fixes include:

  • Flicker removed when changing between chart types in chart dialog.
  • Fixed bug when changing variable details in charting dialog.
  • Scatterplots drop minor ticks when few unique x values e.g. agegroup vs weight.
  • Chart buttons visibly change when selected, even on Mac.
  • Fixed layout and read-only status of config button in projects dialog.

SOFA Statistics is getting a lot closer to being ready for a version 1.0 release.