[Repast-developer] RePast 1.1 released

[Nick C. <ni...@sr...>]

RePast 1.1 has been released. It includes a variety of new features and
the requisite bug fixes. It is available from the RePast home page:
http://repast.sourceforge.net.

Questions, comments, suggestions, and bug reports always welcome.

The release notes follow:

* Repast 1.1

** New Features 

*** New type of Schedule, the SubSchedule

A SubSchedule makes it easier to schedule actions
at different rates. It is identical to a Schedule but can 
be set to iterate over its own actions some specified number
of times whenever it is executed. For example, it may iterate
4 times for every single iteration of its parent Schedule. 
This number of iterations can varied at run-time.

*** Remove BasicActions from Schedules and ActionsGroups
with removeAction(BasicAction action)

*** Execution order is now more easily specifiable

You can now specify that BasicActions scheduled at
some interval or for a single execution at a certain
time, execute after other BasicActions scheduled for
the same tick. This is useful for ensuring that things
such as data collection or image capture that might occur
at some interval occur after their sources change state.
This was always possible, but modifications to the scheduling
mechanism made the semantics quite convoluted.

*** Default execution order for BasicActions added
to a Schedule is now concurrent.

You can use a sequential ActionGroup if you need 
sequential actions.

*** Eliminated reflection from the analysis classes

DataRecorder and the charting classes no longer use
reflection to call methods used in data collection. 
Substantial speed-up in models that frequently collect
a lot of data. The convenience methods that use reflection
remain.

*** New interfaces for collecting and charting data

The elimination of reflection in the analysis classes,
necessitated the introduction of the Sequence and
BinDataSource interfaces.

*** findMin and findMax methods added to Object2DGrid,
Object2DTorus and Diffuse2D spaces.

The method for specifying what constitutes a max or min
value is user specifiable as is the range and neighborhood 
to be searched.

*** Standard java.beans.BeanInfo now used as the
basis for probing.

*** New CustomProbeable interface for specifying
what properties should be probed and displayed

*** New Look for Repast toolbar and parameter windows

Toolbar now uses icons from Dean S. Jones' excellent free icon
collection instead of labeled buttons. The parameter
windows have been consolidated into a single tab in 
a settings window.

*** Custom Actions tab and mechanism

A Custom Actions tab has been placed in the settings
window. You can now easily add sliders, buttons, or
checkboxes to this tab to change the state of the
model at run-time.

*** Repast Action tab

A Repast Action tab has been placed in the settings
window. You can now take snapshots and create movies
by clicking the buttons on this window.

*** Can now load a model from within the Gui. 

There is a load model button on the toolbar for this.

*** -ng switch added to SimInit. 

This switch (no gui) will start a single
run of the model without bringing up the gui.
It is up to the model to stop itself.

*** Includes a port of the Swarm mousetrap 
sample simulation

*** More "How To" documentation

** Bug Fixes

*** Diffuse2D is now correctly double buffered.

*** Misc. small bugs fixed.

** Known problems

There is a flicker in the display when a graphical model
is first started. This is caused, I think, by a small conflict 
between the initial display of the DisplaySurface via the
AWT thread, and the redrawing of the DisplaySurface via the
main Repast thread. This is ugly, but only an inconvenience.
I am looking into it.

-- 
Nick Collier
Social Science Research Computing
University of Chicago
http://repast.sourceforge.net

ni...@sr...