Simile v5.7 Released

Simile verion 5.7 was released on 17th August 2010. We have made Simile more beautiful in a number of ways, but there are serious improvements to functionality too...

Internationalization improvements

• New installer for Windows version, with language options and higher resolution icons
• More international characters are now rendered correctly
• All simile's user messages now pass through a translation function, allowing dictionaries to be created for non-English versions
• More fonts are fully anti-aliased for a smoother appearance

Other appearance improvements

• Search feature in Windows help now works
• Mac version can be adjusted to allow Spotlight for Help functionality in Snow Leopard
• Cursor flashes on matching open-bracket when you type a close-bracket in an equation
• "Normalize" in the model customization dialogue now works properly
• Preferences can customize content of equation listings

Reliability

• Popups are now safe on components with many millions of values
• Some combinations of model exceptions and I/O tool layout could hang
  Simile. Not any more.
• Scrolling input parameter listbox in equation dialogue is now possible
• Problems when installed in a folder whose name contains spaces in
  Windows 7 have been fixed
• The PEST interface can now handle large (100+ member) arrays for both
  model inputs and outputs

Extra functionality

• A new function 'in_preceding' returns the value of its argument from
  the preceding submodel instance, making cumulative or distributive
  processes simpler to model
• Scripting language gets a callback function which is script-defined
  and executes every display interval, useful for logging results
• Equations have an extra parameter name referring to values from a base or association model irrespective of role
• Adaptive step-size control now takes a compartment's allowable range of values into account when applying error limit
• Values can now be pasted into the View/Edit tool for file parameters

And, as usuall, many very minor fixes and enhancements have been made.