[ANNOUNCE] ESS 5.1.20 is released

Rodney Sparapani rsparapa at post.its.mcw.edu
Mon Feb 18 21:45:37 CET 2002


ANNOUNCING ESS
**************

   The ESS Developers proudly announce the release of ESS-5.1.20
-------------------------------------------------------------------

   Emacs Speaks Statistics (ESS) provides an intelligent, consistent
interface between the user and the software.  ESS interfaces with SAS,
S-PLUS, R, and other statistics analysis packages under the Unix,
Microsoft Windows, and Apple Mac operating systems.  ESS is itself a
package within the Emacs text editor and uses Emacs features to
streamline the creation and use of statistical software.  ESS knows the
syntax and grammar of statistical analysis packages and provides
consistent display and editing features based on that knowledge.  ESS
assists in interactive and batch execution of statements written in
these statistical analysis languages.

   ESS is freely available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Please read the file COPYING which comes with the distribution, for
more information about the license.  For more detailed information,
please read the README files that come with ESS.  And to clear up any
possible confusion; the name is ESS, NOT ESS-mode.

   Thank you :-).

Getting the Latest Version
==========================

   The latest stable version of ESS is always available on the web at:
http://software.biostat.washington.edu/statsoft/ess/ or
http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/general/ESS/

Current Features
================

   * Languages Supported:
        * S dialects (S 3/4, S-PLUS 3.x/4.x/5.x/6.x, and R)

        * XLispStat including Arc and ViSta

        * SAS

        * BUGS

        * Stata

        * SPSS dialects (SPSS, Fiasco (GNU project)) (under development)

   * Editing source code (S, XLispStat, SAS, BUGS)
        * Syntactic indentation and highlighting of source code

        * Partial evaluation of code

        * Loading and error-checking of code

        * Source code revision maintenance

        * Batch execution (SAS, BUGS)

   * Interacting with the process (S, XLispStat, SAS)
        * Command-line editing

        * Searchable Command history

        * Command-line completion of S object names and file names

        * Quick access to object lists and search lists

        * Transcript recording

        * Interface to the help system

   * Transcript manipulation (S3, S+3, S4, R, XLispStat)
        * Recording and saving transcript files

        * Manipulating and editing saved transcripts

        * Re-evaluating commands from transcript files

   * Help File Editing (R)
        * Syntactic indentation and highlighting of source code.

        * Sending Examples to running ESS process.

        * Previewing

Requirements
============

   ESS version 5.1.n (n >= 2) requires Emacs version 19.34(1) or later,
or version XEmacs 19.14 or later.  It has been most thoroughly tested
with:

   * S-PLUS versions 3.3, 3.4, 4.5, 5.0, 5.1, 6

   * R versions >=0.49

   * S4

   * SAS 6.x, 7.x, 8.x

   * BUGS 0.5 or 0.6

   * Stata >=6.0

   * XLispStat versions >=3.50

   on the following platforms

   * Solaris/SunOS (all)

   * SGI (all)

   * Linux (S-PLUS 5.0, 5.1, R, XLispStat, S4, Stata 6.0)

   * Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT/2000 (SPLUS 4.5 and 2000)

   * Apple Mac OS: 9 (SAS), X.1 (X11 R)

   with the following versions of emacs

   * Emacs 19.34, 20.3, 20.4, 20.5, 20.6, 20.7, 21.1

   * XEmacs 19.14, 19.16, 20.0, 20.4, 21.0, 21.1.13, 21.4.x

   * Emacs 19.28, 19.29 (see footnote)

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) if you have Emacs 19.29, you _may_ get it to work after
unpacking `19.29.tar.gz', see the installation instructions

Stability
=========

   Versions 5.1.x are meant to be gamma-level releases.  While some bugs
are fixed, others may have been introduced, especially with regards to
new features.  See the file doc/TODO for details.  Bug reports are
solicited; see the Bugs Section below.  Patches or suggested coding
fixes with bug reports are much appreciated!

Mailing List
============

   There is a mailing list for discussions and announcements relating to
ESS.  Join the list by sending an e-mail with "subscribe ess-help" (or
"help") in the body to <ess-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch>;
contributions to the list may be mailed to
<ess-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>.  Rest assured, this is a fairly
low-volume mailing list.

   The purposes of the mailing list include

   *  helping users of ESS to get along with it.

   *  discussing aspects of using ESS on Emacs and XEmacs.

   *  suggestions for improvements.

   *  announcements of new releases of ESS.

   *  posting small patches to ESS.

Reporting Bugs
==============

   Please send bug reports, suggestions etc. to

   <ESS-bugs at stat.math.ethz.ch>

   The easiest way to do this is within Emacs by typing

   `M-x ess-submit-bug-report'

   This also gives the maintainers valuable information about your
installation which may help us to identify or even fix the bug.

   Note that comments, suggestions, words of praise and large cash
donations are also more than welcome.

Authors
=======

   * A.J. Rossini (http://www.biostat.washington.edu/~rossini/)
     <rossini at u.washington.edu>

   * Richard M. Heiberger
     (http://www.sbm.temple.edu/departments/statistics/)
     <rmh at fisher.stat.temple.edu>

   * Kurt Hornik (http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik)
     <hornik at ci.tuwien.ac.at>

   * Martin Maechler (http://stat.ethz.ch/~maechler/)
     <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>

   * Rodney Sparapani (http://www.mcw.edu/pcor/rsparapa)
     <rsparapa at mcw.edu>

License
=======

   ESS is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later
version.

   ESS is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License
in the file COPYING in the same directory as this file for more details.

New Features
============

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.20:
   * New `options()$STERM' in the S dialects (S, S-Plus, R).  The S
     program can determine the environment in which it is currently
     running.  ESS sets the option to `iESS' or `ddeESS' when it starts
     an S language process.  We recommend other specific values for S
     language processes that ESS does not start.

   * New `ess-mouse-me' function, assigned to S-mouse-3 by default.
     User may click on a word or region and then choose from the menu
     to display the item, or a summary, or a plot, etc.  This feature
     is still under development.

   * GNU Emacs 21.1 is now supported (fixed for S dialects, SAS & BUGS),
     (some from Stephen Eglen).

   * XEmacs 21.x is now supported (fixed w32-using-nt bug)

   * XEmacs on Win (NT) is better supported.

   * Workaround for bug in Sqpe+6 (S-PLUS 6 for Win).

   * should now work even when imenu is not available (for old
     Xemacsen).

   * for SAS : XEmacs-Imenu fix; C-TAB is globalized along with your
     function-key definitions, if specified; you can specify your SAS
     library definitions outside of autoexec.sas for ess-sas-data-view
     with SAS code placed in the variable ess-sas-data-view-libname,
     also the dataset name is defaulted to the nearest permanent dataset
     to point; Speedbar support now works for permanent datasets, please
     ignore first./last.; new font-locking is now the default with more
     improvements for font-locking PROCs, macro statements, * ; and %* ;
     comments; you can toggle sas-log-mode with F10 which will font-lock
     your .log (if it isn't too big); submit remote .sas files accessed
     with ange-ftp, EFS or Tramp (Kermit is experimental) by setting
     ess-sas-submit-method to 'sh; ess-sas-submit-command and
     ess-sas-submit-command-options are buffer-local so you can have
     local file variable sections at the end of your .sas files to
     request different executables or specify special options and the
     local file variables are re-read at submit instead of only at file
     open so that if you make a change it is picked up immediately;

   * for BUGS: font-lock with `in' fixed.

   * for STATA: font-lock bug fixed.

   * for Rd mode: C-c C-v and `switch-process' in menu.  further, C-c
     C-f prefix (Rd-font) for inserting or surrounding a word by things
     such as \code{.}, \code{\link{.}}, \emph{.} etc.

   * new functions (ess-directory-function) and (ess-narrow-to-defun)
     ess-directory <-> default-directory logic (Jeff Mincy).

   * Re-organized Makefile and fixed a few bugs.

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.19:
   * S+6 now supported (Tony Rossini (Unix) and Rich Heiberger
     (Windows))

   * New BUGS support through ESS[BUGS] mode (Rodney Sparapani)
     Templates assist you in writing .bug and .cmd code (.cmd and .log
     are replaced by .bmd and .bog to avoid emacs extension collisions).
     Substitution" parameters facilitate "automagic" generation of
     data...in" and "init...in" filenames, "const N=" from your data
     file and "monitor()/stats()" commands.  Activated by pressing F12.

   * Fixes for `ess-smart-underscore' SAS breakage (Rich Heiberger)

   * You can change between PC and Unix, local and global SAS
     function-key definitions interactively (Rich Heiberger)

   * C-Submit a highlighted region to SAS batch (Rodney Sparapani)

   * New and improved SAS syntax highlighting (Rodney Sparapani) To get
     the new functionality, set ess-sas-run-make-regexp to nil.  Also
     available in .log files via F10.

   * Open a permanent SAS dataset for viewing via F9 (Rodney Sparapani)
     You must have the library defined in autoexec.sas for it to work.

   * User-friendly defaults for `sas-program',
     `ess-sas-batch-pre-command' and `ess-sas-batch-post-command' as
     well Customize support for these and other ESS[SAS] variables
     (Rodney Sparapani)

   * `ess-sas-suffix-2' now defaults to .dat via F11 (Rodney Sparapani)

   * Emacs/XEmacs, Unix/Windows issues collectively handled in
     ess-emcs.el

   * defadvice solves problem of missing *ESS* (thanks to Jeff Mincy)

   * Improved manual a bit by including things that were only in
     `README'.

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.18:
   * New `ess-smart-underscore' function, now assigned to "_" by
     default.  Inserts `ess-S-assign' (customizable " <- "), unless
     inside string and comments where plain "_" is used instead. (MM)

   * Fixes for longstanding interactive SAS breakage (RMH)

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.17:
   * Documentation for Windows Installation (Rich Heiberger
     (<rmh at surfer.stat.temple.edu>))

   * removal of ess-vars, finalization of customize support (in the
     sense that there is no more use of ess-vars, but that we need to
     fix ess-cust) (AJ Rossini (<rossini at u.washington.edu>))

   * Many small (and large) fixes/contributions (MMaechler,
     (<maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>)).

   * addition of the "S-equal" variable and provide M-x ess-add-MM-keys
     a way to remap "_" to `ess-S-assign', typically " <- ", but
     customizable. (MMaechler, (<maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>)).

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.16:
   * BUG FIXES

   * Better SAS support

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.15:
   * BUG FIXES

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.14:
   * Yet more fixes to SAS mode, (Rich Heiberger
     (<rmh at surfer.stat.temple.edu>) and Rodney Sparapani
     <rsparapa at mcw.edu>)).

   * Customize support (for most Emacsen which support it) (AJRossini,
     (<rossini at biostat.washington.edu>)

   * ARC and ViSta support out of the box, and fixes for XLispStat
     (AJRossini, <rossini at biostat.washington.edu>)

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.13:
   * Version numbering finally all depending on the ./VERSION file,
     thanks to Martin Maechler.

   * Yet more fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rich Heiberger
     (<rmh at surfer.stat.temple.edu>).

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.12:
   * Splus 5.1 stabilized, thanks to Martin Maechler, Bill Venables,
     Chuck Taylor, and others.

   * More fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rodney Sparapani
     (<rsparapa at mcw.edu>) and Rich Heiberger
     (<rmh at surfer.stat.temple.edu>).

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.11:
   * More fixes to Stata mode, thanks to Brendan Halpin
     (<brendan at essex.ac.uk>)

   * fixed bugs in ESS-elsewhere, thanks to many testers

   * README.SPLUS4WIN has DETAILED instructions for S-PLUS 2000, thanks
     to David Brahm (<brahm at alum.mit.edu>).

   * Fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rodney Sparapani (<rsparapa at mcw.edu>)

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.10:
   * More fixes to Stata mode

   * primitive generic version of ESS-elsewhere

   * Small fixes to SAS/Stata.

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.9:
   * Stata mode works

   * Literate Data Analysis using Noweb works

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.8:
   * Bug fixes

   * R documentation mode defaults changed

   Changes/New Features in 5.1.2:
   * able to use inferior iESS mode to communicate directly with a
     running S-Plus 4.x process using the Microsoft DDE protocol.  We
     use the familiar (from Unix ESS) C-c C-n and related key sequences
     to send lines from the S-mode file to the inferior S process.  We
     continue to edit S input files in ESS[S] mode and transcripts of
     previous S sessions in ESS Transcript mode.  All three modes know
     the S language, syntax, and indentation patterns and provide the
     syntactic highlighting that eases the programming tasks.
     
Rodney Sparapani              Medical College of Wisconsin
Sr. Biostatistician           Patient Care & Outcomes Research (PCOR)
rsparapa at mcw.edu              http://www.mcw.edu/pcor
Was 'Name That Tune' rigged?  WWLD -- What Would Lombardi Do

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
ess-help mailing list -- To (un)subscribe, send
subscribe	or	unsubscribe
(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: ess-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._



More information about the ESS-help mailing list