Simile v5.6 was released on 22nd December 2009. This release fixes a few problems that have come up as Simile starts to be used on machines using a wide variety of international character sets, particularly on the newer versions of Windows where these characters are more likely to occur in installatio directory names. We urge everyone who has had problems in the past with special characters to try installing the new version.
A few problems with lesser-used bits of the Simile equation language have come up and been fixed. These include channel identification for immigration, base instance lookup on by-record submodels, and the generation of code for loops in a single time step involving a relation submodel.
Apart from these, a wide variety of minor annoyances with the smoothness of the user interface have been fixed. There is also one significant innovation: the equation bar now has an 'auto-complete' mode. Start typing the name of a supplied parameter or function and the rest of it will appear as selected text. To use this, just do a cursor move (e.g., hit an arrow key); if the auto complete is a function name, back-arrow will include it and place the cursor between the parentheses ready to enter the argument. Up and down arrows select different possible completions.
Version 5.6 is probably going to be the last Simile version to run on PowerPC-based Macs, unless we hear a howl of protest to the contrary.