Here are highlights of new and improved features in Analytica
4.2 added since the release 4.1. Additional detail can be
found on the Analytica
Wiki
Order upgrade to 4.2, Analytica customers who have current support and a valid 4.1 license, can upgrade at no cost.
License Manager
Analytica's new license manager makes
it much easier to manage multiple licenses for an organization. It offers a floating license
(sometimes called concurrent license) as an alternative to standard single-user license.
In an organization with, say, five floating licenses, any five people may run Analytica
simultaneously. License roaming lets users check out a floating license onto their laptop
when they travel out of the office. The license manager software (from Reprise) runs on a
central server, letting one person manage and track all Analytica licenses in the
organization, whether individual or floating, and for any Editions (Professional,
Enterprise, Optimizer, ADE, etc.).
Model Licensing: Analytica applications (models) can be distributed that
require a license by their end users.
Analytica can automatically activate
your license via the internet when you install Analytica. If you provide your wiki account
information, it will log you into your account automatically when you access it using Analytica wiki from the Help menu.
Without activation code, the installer provides the free Player edition.
This makes it just a bit easier for people to set up to review and run models - at no cost and without having to register.
It gives automatic alerts when a new patch or release is available.
64-bit Support
Support for 64-bit
breaks through the 32-bit memory barrier so that Analytica models can
access up to 128 GB memory instead of the maximum 3GB memory accessible
with 32-bit Windows. You need a 64-bit computer running a 64-bit version of
Windows Operating System, whether XP, Vista, Windows 7, or Server.
The 64-bit upgrade is available for Analytica Enterprise, Optimizer, Power Player or ADE.
User
Interface
You can now show a Checkbox as an input node in a Diagram or in a cell of an Edit table
- in addition to Choice pulldown menus available before.
You can enter multiline text
into a cell of a table or index using Alt-Enter.
You can reorder elements in a list or
index by dragging and dropping them. All downstream tables automatically shift their rows to correspond.
Double-click on a handle
in a result table highlights the node of that object in its parent diagram
by default. A new preference option lets you open
its object window instead, or open the diagram for a module.
For a module, you
can specify one of its variables as its TemplateInput and another as its
TemplateOutput, when lets you treat the module node like a regular variable:
Select the module node and click Result to see the value of its TemplateOutput.
Draw an arrow into the module to make it an input of TemplateInput.
Draw an arrow from the module to add its TemplateOutput variable as an
input to the destination node. Using this in combination with Model
building by mouse features lets you build models using templates using
just your mouse to link variables and modules without needing to type in definitions explicitly.
You can change the color of a data series by right clicking on a data point on a graph and selecting
Change series color... from the right mouse menu.
You can apply stacked line filled area to line graphs
Excel
Integration
New functions make it much easier
to write models that interoperate with Microsoft Excel: SpreadsheetOpen, SpreadsheelCell,
and SpreadsheetRange, let you open a spreadsheet and read a cell or range from it into
Analytica. SpreadsheetOpen, SpreadsheelCell,
and SpreadsheetRangelet you write values
into a cell or range, and save the changed spreadsheet.
Expressions
New
Functions
FindinText, SplitText, and TextReplace,
now let you include regular expressions a powerful and widely used (if cryptic) way to
identify patterns of text to match, as used for example in Perl. This makes it much
easier to parse text, for example separating words,processing numbers, and parsing html, XML,
and other computer languages.
Sort(A, I) provides a more convenient way to obtain a sorted array than SortIndex.
Sort and the existing SortIndex and Rank functions now support multi-key sorts,
ascending or decreasing order, and options to specify case (in)sensitivity.
>Aggregate makes it easy to reindex from a fine to coarser index -
such as from days to months, or months to years.
Enhancements
to Existing Functions
Concat and the new ConcatRows are much easier to use, creating new local
indexes as needed, rather than requiring you to provide them yourself.
Sequence (m, n, dateUnit: u) makes a sequence of dates from mto n, by specifying
units as years, quarters, months, days, hours, minutes, or seconds.
Dynamic function can now define recurrence relations over indexes other than Time.
For example over index J, as in Dynamic[J](0, x[J-1]). Dynamic can also iterate in reverse, from the last Time (or other index) back to the first useful for some kinds of goal-directed or dynamic programming. You c
an define multidimensional recurrences using multiple indexes in a dynamic loop. User-defined functions can now be part
of a dynamic loop.
ReadFromURL reads content as text directly from a web page, using HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, or
Gopher servers. It can provide data as in form fields submitted to a web page. It can also
return an image in standard formats (JPG, PNG, GIF, etc.) which you can assign as the Pict
attribute of an object to display in a diagram.
Whatif, WhatifAll, DyDx, Elasticity, and other hypothetical evaluation functions now cache
the original values while computing the hypothetical values, making them more efficient and
letting them work when two such functions have a common input. DyDx and Elasticity now work
properly in probabilistic mode.
Expression Language
Slice assignment lets you assign into an array an entire slice, over multiple indexes,
with full support of array abstraction.
Using the Variable qualifier when declaring a function parameter lets the function change
the value of that variable (only if the function is called from a script).
In programs that work on variables, you can declare local variables using Metavar or
LocalAlias where you want a variable to refer to a handle or an alias, respectively.
Miscellaneous
Optimizer: For high-end linear and
non-linear optimization using larger numbers of decision variables and constraints, your
Analytica models can now use a range of high-powered solver engines, including Large-scale
GRG (LSGRG), Large-scale LP (LSLP), LSSQP, XPress, MOSEK, OptQuest, and Knitro using the
standard Optimizer interfaces. You may purchase licenses for these solvers from Frontline
Systems.
Memory management: Several new features help make more efficient use of memory, including control of
caching intermediate results, more efficient editing for large tables, and an expanded memory usage
dialog that lets you monitor use of RAM and virtual memory.
Scripts on Choice menus: You can add a script that is executed when users select from a Choice menu,
enabling more flexible user interactions.
Browse-only and hiding definitions in library modules: You can now lock a separately saved module or
library file as browse only, and hide selected definitions to distribute for others to use. They can
now incorporate protected modules and libraries without have to protect their entire model.
A new option in Save a copy in... lets you save all linked libraries and modules combined into a single file.
What's
New in Analytica 4.2?