File Release Notes and Changelog

Release Name: alpha-20080729

Notes:
This is a major new release of the flare toolkit.

There are extensive additions, including a new labeling API, a new analytics package, tooltip support, updates to the 
filtering and sorting utilities, and a host of new visual encoding operators.

See the change log for more details.

Changes: Restructured flare organization into a single project Added analytics package - CommunityStructure clustering - BetweennessCentrality stats - LinkDistance stats - MaxFlowMinCut computation - ShortestPaths - SpanningTree - AspectRatioBanker - Support classes for heaps and matrices Added / fixed layouts - Added CirclePackingLayout - Added IcicleTreeLayout - Added BundledEdgeRouter - Updated Circle layout to provide a general radial scatterplot - Fixed StackedAreaLayout bugs - Added generalized size property to TreeMapLayout Added Labeling support in operator.label package - Added default Labeler class for Cartesian coordinates - Added RadialLabeler for polar coordinates - Added StackedAreaLabeler Added new controls - Added TooltipControl - Added ClickControl - Updated SelectionControl Updated Event Models - Added event metadata to event dispatching classes - Replaced transition callbacks with events (START, STEP, STOP) - Replaced control callbacks with events (HoverControl, SelectionControl, TooltipControl) - Improved DataEvent and SelectionEvent classes Added DataList data groups - Additional named DataLists can now be added to a Data instance - DataLists now independent, with cancelable add/remove events - Updated encoders to take a "group" parameter to target a given group, this replaces the previous "which" flag New property management abstractions - Added IEvaluable and IPredicate interfaces - Updated Property and Expression to implement both - Updated DataList.setProperties to use IEvaluable - Updated NodeSprite property setters to use IEvaluable - Enables dynamic property definitions New filtering infrastructure - Added generalized filters, create with flare.util.Filter.$() - Supports functions, type-checks, properties, and IPredicate expressions Updated Scale package and handling - Moved scale package to top-level - Added flare.vis.data.ScaleBinding class to handle property-scale bindings - Updated encoding and layout operators to use ScaleBinding Updated shape handling - Changed DataSprite.shape to be a string value - Added shape drawing function registry to Shapes class - Updated ShapePalette to provide shape names (strings) Updated Operator Model - Visualzation can now manage multiple named operators - Visualization.update can now accept list of operator names - The standard vis.operators also accessible as named "main" operator - Added "enabled" flag to optionally disable operators - Operators now support generalized parameter settings Updated Axis handling - Added lineCap properties for defining gridline overflow - Updated labelOffset handling to place labels on either side of the plot - Fixed axis bounds bug, bounds now animate correctly - Updated Axis to initialize Number properties to zero - Updated Axis with automatic determination of number of labels Updated DataSprite methods and Rendering - Added origin property - provides a movable zero point for polar coordinates - Added hue, saturation, and value properties for DataSprite colors - Added arrow endings for EdgeSprites to EdgeRenderer - Added Displays class with "thumbnails" method to generate thumbnail images - Added NodeSprite.sortEdgesBy method - Added NodeSprite property setter methods for connected nodes/edges - Fixed null shape bug in ShapeRenderer - Added B-Spline rendering to Shapes Various bugs fixes and tweaks - Fixed inverse interpolation denominator bug - Updated JSON Tokenize to treat line breaks as whitespace - Changed Sort handling, descending sort order now specified by "-" prefix - ForceDirectedLayout now handles null setter functions - Fixed visitation check bug in GraphDistanceFilter - Added textMode property to Legend - Fixed angle distance bug in RadialTreeLayout - Fixed collapse bug for wedges in RadialTreeLayout - Fixed sizing errors in NodeLinkTreeLayout and Distortion - Added endSize and endBounds to Transitioner - Updated demos, added new standard applications