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Release Notes Smart 1.3.1

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What's new in Smart 1.3.1
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Release Notes Smart 1.3.0 (separate page)
Earlier release notes (separate page)

What's new in Smart 1.3.1

January 16, 2023

Help files, manual

The "reference manual" has been replaced by a completely rewritten manual, including sections per screen (window or dialog) in Smart.
All screens have a corresponding help file now, and in all screens the F1 key brings up that help file. For the main window, an additional menu item under Help makes the help file available even if other screens are open.
Terminology is now consistent throughout the whole manual.
The new manual starts with an introduction on Smart and the main stages of using Smart.

Background information on multiple aspects has been expanded considerably. Some further technical information is available upon request.
Release notes are included in the distribution of Smart. The manual and the program itself (in its help menu) both contain a link to the release notes of the current version.
The manual includes an index as well. This has been on the wish list for a long time already.

Main menu

A new item in the Tools menu makes Smart's start screen available at any later moment, provided there is no open model.
The Help menu contains two new items: one for linking to the release notes, and the other for help on the main window itself.

Presentation

While working on the manual, many small inconsistencies in screens were discovered and repaired. Some titles, names of fields, and names of menu items have been refined. In some places, there are also minor changes to layout inside screens.

Some error messages were unnecessarily general. Were possible, the text has been made more specific.
The text of many error messages has been adjusted to make them more consistent – and thereby simplify the corresponding sections of the manual.

Control

The definition of keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+S and Ctrl+P was counter intuitive. Since this version, Ctrl+S is defined for each window that supports writing data to file (Model definition, Experiment definition, Graph, Table), and Ctrl+P is defined for each window that supports printing (Model definition, Experiment definition, Listing, Graph, Table).

The keyboard shortcuts for opening or creating a model or experiment have not been changed. The keyboard shortcuts for closing a model or experiment have been removed. Most users would use the Windows close button, otherwise Alt+M > C or Alt+E > C can be used.

The F1 key for help works in all screens now.
The Black box window features a new popup menu.

Some keyboard shortcuts by the Alt key (highlighted letters) have been changed, in order to avoid duplicate letters and increase consistency. For example, Alt+H is now exclusively used for button Help, while Check was reassigned to Alt+K.

Errors corrected

The functionality of Compare experiment was broken by features introduced in version 1.3.0. It works as expected again.

A missing cleanup operation caused Smart to crash when opening a Black box model without an accompanying meta_exp file. This version gives an appropriate error message instead.

Version 1.3.0 introduced a bug during model compilation when numbers in fields like default values and domain boundaries did not start with a digit. Such numbers again follow the same syntax as numbers in formulas (so numbers like .7 and 3. are allowed as alternatives for 0.7 and 3.0, respectively).

When expanding a model using arrays, column numbers of tabulars were not expanded correctly. Now, column numbers are numbered consecutively in the expansion, with the specified column number (unexpanded) as column number of the first element (expanded). Experimenters can still change the definition of sources for simulation runs – with the expanded model.

Some grids could move focus while clicking, which leads to confusing behavior. This has been resolved.

In previous versions of Smart, some invisible buttons could still be activated by their keyboard shortcut. In most cases, this is impossible from now on.

A duplicate error message on some compiler errors has been resolved.
A duplicate error message when starting a simulation with an old DLL has been resolved.

For external use of the DLL, it is no longer allowed to change the value of fixed constants. (For use inside Smart, this would never be possible anyway.)

Model definition

Canceling the Model: General dialog during Model > New is possible now. This does not cancel creating a new model however, but the model is considered as unchanged still. The resulting empty model name and time unit can be saved, but before compilation the modeler must provide a non-empty name and time unit. (Opening a model with an empty name will show the Model: General dialog automatically.)

Component overviews now distinguish conditional formulas. If a formula is conditional, the (start of the) first condition in curly braces precedes the formula.
Comments in tab Tabulars don’t show fixed text parts anymore.

Some missing checks on the definition array families and array index specifications have been added.
Definitions of array families in model listings are presented as links.
The Search model window finds names and sizes of array families as well.
Chained comparisons (introduced in version 1.3.0) are retained during model expansion.

Experiment definition

The Search experiment input window finds model name, model version, and model date as well.
While tabulars and special states are available as experiment outputs since version 1.3.0, buttons T and Sp were not yet enabled in Search experiment output. This has been corrected in version 1.3.1.

Outputs selected for showing during simulation are now always also selected for storing. Speed button Off will not change items selected for showing during simulation.

Properties from tabs General and Run options are presented as links in experiment listings.

Experiment context

The new experiment context and custom experiment context, introduced in version 1.3.0 for replacing DXP files, had the same options as DXP files previously.
This version adds further settings for the Run options tab. Thereby, it is possible to completely specify the default settings for new experiments through a custom_exp file.

When working with categories, any components that cannot be selected as output (by suppressing category All), will not be stored anymore.

The option to still generate DXP files has been removed entirely.

Example models

The dialog for copying example models has been improved to avoid warnings in cases that are intuitively clear.

Example model Daisy World is now available in two versions: a full version with mdl file, and a Black box version without the mdl file. Apart from the presence or absence of the mdl file, both versions are identical.

This version introduces two new example models, both as a Black box model:
Egg, a model of dynamics of calcium and phosphorus in egg production.
Nutrient Kinetics (HARMKE), a model of digestion and absorption of nutrients in dairy cattle.

Known issues

The number of condition-formula pairs in model components is still hard coded. (Its limit has been increased to 20 in a previous version of Smart.) The list of condition-formula pairs should grow and shrink like the lists of array families and array indexes. Unfortunately, this is not a trivial change.

The order of existing variables in existing graphs is not changed when they are changed in the Define Output dialog. This has been a (previously undiscovered) issue in all versions of Smart.

Special state kind "Delay" is still "not yet implemented".

Prints of listings and graphs do not always scale properly. Unfortunately, these are issues of underlying components, out of our control.

An early version of Smart supported customization of visibility of model components. This feature has not been maintained and is possibly broken. Please remove or rename any old .cst and .prv files that accompany your models.

If you find any errors not included here, please inform us.

Contact

For questions and suggestions regarding Smart, please contact Mark R. Kramer (mark dot kramer at wur dot nl) of the Information Technology chair group at Wageningen University.