Sphinx SD Tools / News: Recent posts

Hello!

Today, at First day of school, or Knowledge Day, we are happy to present new release of Sphinx SD Tools - 1.0 release.
There are quite small portion of visual changes, but a lot of internal, so the project prepared for further development and improvements.
Concrete changes are:
* Additional Informations on modeling elements https://sourceforge.net/p/sphinxes/feature-requests/14/
* docs update
* more sophisticated build version approach (one place to define version, git revision used)
* tests are in game now; all included samples are tested to finish successfully... read more

Finally, 0.9b is out!

For the details please read previous [2013/07/09b-is-almost-ready].

Thank you!

Hello!

0,9b release is almost ready!
In fact, it is already ready (and the corresponding code and 0.9b tag in the git repo),
but as I'm out of office now I cannot prepare and upload release files.
This will be done in the middle on July.

So, what's new in the 0.9b? Speedup and improvements (most in the sens. analyst), in details:
- sensitivity analyst steps are executed and rendered in parallel, in core this allows better multicore utilization, in ui this improves sens. analyst usability;
- in sensitivity analyst mode, when modelling is completed, in model view window there is improvement tooltips for entities: earlier there was shown chart only for last step, now for all the steps at the same time, enabling for quick overview what happend with model's entities during sensitivity analyst;
- in sensitivity analyst mode table data export exports not only the last step, but all the steps of the sensitivity analyst for the selected entities.... read more

Hi!

To keep you up to date just wanted to mention what are changes to be made in 0.9b and later.

As we posted earlier, we moved our execution engine to akka.io-based actor system.
What are the benefits:
- clearear multithreaded programming model
- improved ui responsiveness
- potentially better utilization of milticore systems
So there are also one cons: as of every modelling tick is done via sending messages between entities-actors and akka.io internally used HashedWheelTimer for thread scheduling, we have to spend at least 1ms for every modelling tick. In other words now we can't go faster than 1000 ticks per second.... read more

And 0.8b finally there!
This is not feature but maintenance release in which major points are:
- Akka (akka.io) based model simulation -- for clearear programming model and basement for better multicore utilize on large models in future.
- Inno setup for windows installation -- for ease of use for Windows users
- updated dependencies - to be up-to-date!

Next releases will probably be pointed to improving performance and fixing bugs while we are on the way to define Sphinx SD Tools roadmap.... read more

Source code successfully migrated from svn to git.
Svn links is still accessible, but svn repo is outdated -- no new commmits will be performed on it, instead git repo will be used.

Also project layout have changed -- it become most likely maven layout with some additional folders. This let as clean up mess in the project root directory.

Eclipse project files is no longer in the repository (by the way development will be done in Intellij IDEA CE, but it doesn't matter) so you have to import project in your favourite IDE as MAVEN project and add some folders under src/main to the source folders. Detailed instructions will be supplied later in pdf docs.... read more

We are resuming development process and first step is to move code repository from SVN to GIT.
SVN links will be removed as soon as first GIT commits will appear.
Some great features are one the way...

This release has two primary goals:
First, as always, it is a bug fix and features added and improved release;
And second is to make it easily available for windows users.

So, for the second goal there a new file that can be downloaded -- contained 'win' in it's name. This is just an zip archive containing windows executable wrapper for the Sphinx SD Tools main file.

Also, at the main project's site, http://sphinxes.org there will be available windows installer.

0.6.1b is priliminary a bug fix release with small amount of features added.
Bug fixes:
now english language by default;
flow can be connected to multiple stocks visually;
path cannot contain any charachters not in latin charset;
undo/redo stack bugs;
ui commands go cyclic sometimes;
crazy jumps of split pane divider;
steams and connectors don't save their bendpoints when restoring after delition.

Features:
entity name editor enchancements;
antialiasing;
editor grid;
enitites and functions are sorted by name in UI;
new runtime variable (DT together with old variable TIME);
some new functions are implemented;
composite command for moving;
easy way to add bendpoint to any arrow.

This is primarily a code refactoring release. But it also has some new improvements and features implemented:
- sensitivity analisys implemented
- project view refactored
- new languages and more complete translations
- extended icon set

Sphinx SD Tools is an intermediate release at the road to 0.6b.
We fixed some bugs and implemented new features:

+ 1968564: Execution chart in variable hint
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1968564&group_id=177480&atid=881405

+ 1938436 Undo/Redo stack
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1938436&group_id=177480&atid=881405

b 1932151 Outline view doesn't respont to model editing events
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1932151&group_id=177480&atid=881402... read more

This release offers two new features implemented and icon set updated:

+ 1938438: Simulation speed control
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=177480&func=detail&atid=881405&aid=1938438

+ 1938436: Undo/Redo stack
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=177480&func=detail&atid=881405&aid=1938436

This is an intermediate release with some features inplemented and Chinese, Portuguese and Dutch translations available.

Also some unneseccary libraries that appeared not to be used was removed from bundle that reduced size.

+ 1938441: Table functions graphical editor
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=177480&func=detail&atid=881405&aid=1938441

+ 1938446: Export simulation results
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=177480&func=detail&atid=881405&aid=1938446

+ Chinese translation

+ Portuguese translation

+ Dutch translation

New release uncludes documentation, new translation to Spanish language and some bug fixes and improvements. There are:
+ Spanish translation added
+ 1932153: Partial pop-up updating
+ 1932149: Add pop-up menu in outline as model editor have
b 1935824: Fails to build on Debian/Etch
b 1935823: fails to run on Debian/Etch
b 1932151: Outline view doesn't respond to model editing events
b 1927025: Division by zero leads to UI freeze with chart
b 1926955: Elements added to a model behind model bieng edited... read more

This is a prerelease version of documentation.
It availabale for downloading under 0.3a release of Sphinx SD Tools.

-UserGuide.pdf -- is an instructions for how to download and install Sphinx SD Tools, it's dependencies, license information, history and so on.

-UserManual.pdf -- is a manual that describes how to create System Dynamics models using Sphinx SD Tools and in future will describe common System Dynamics approach as well.

New features:
+ outline view in model editor
+ i18n support together with English(en-US) and Russian(ru-RU) l10ns available

We are glad to present you first release of our project -- Sphinx SD Tools 0.2a! You can try it by downloading in Download section.