The following lists briefly describe the changes in each new version of PublishPlot.

Version 3.3.1 - January 2026

• Fixed a serious color conflict caused by updates in MacOS Tahoe (probably the "Liquid Glass Feature"). Colors would not be decoded correctly when reading a file (and many would switch to white). This update fixes that conflict. Old file should now open fine (unless accidentally saved with white conversions).

Version 3.3 - January 2026

• Verified in MacOS Tahoe.
• Updated to recent Apple requirements for icons and age ratings.
• Some edits to help information prompted by user questions

Version 3.2 - June 2024

• A feature neglected for the new plot keys introduced in version 3.1 was a way to omit selected data sets from the key. That can now be done by using empty plot names or by starting plot names with a back slash ('\')
• X axis labels in bar charts can now use subscripts and superscripts.
• Exponential smoothing now works with non-decreasing data. In other words, it now works provided each x value ≥ previous x value while before each x value had to be greater and could not be equal to the previous value.
• Plot Labels used to draw in layer below Plot Shapes. They are now in the same layer to allow more control of labels and shapes.

Version 3.1 - September 2023

• You can now add plot keys to plots (note that plot keys are not recommended when publishing plots and especially not when creating plots for presentation slides).
• Plot property command options that have spaces can now also be set by replacing spaces with an underscore character ("_").
• Plots with small numbers that used to get all zeros for axis labels now convert to scientific notation when needed.
• Any color can now set opacity using a slider in the color panel. Opacity fields for some colors remain and they are synchronized with the color panel opacity slider.
• The Add Data Set... menu command can now add a bar chart to a previously empty document.
• "+" and "*" plot symbols were previouly drawn in same color as the line. They now correctly use the chosen symbol line color.
• The "left triangle" and "right triangle" symbols had name mismatch between their setting and the value saved in a file. That mismatch is now corrected.
• Color names using RGBA values can be formatted in new ways.
• A new setting lets you open help information in a browser instead of in Apple's help viewer.
• Numbers in plot tables can now be followed by "%"
• Copy and pasting plot data from the inspector window will now paste into Excel as two columns instead of one.

Version 3.0 - April 2023

• All saved files (both pplot and ppltj files) now use the same plain-text file format. Binary pplot files saved by prior versions of PublishPlot can still be opened.
• Formatting of the labels at major tick marks was improved. Previous labeling could drop a needed digit for certain tick interval settings.
• While dragging labels or shapes, the left and bottom pixel locations of the shape will be displayed in a field near the bottom-right corner of the window.
• Tick marks can now be customize to a different color than the plot frame.
• Added "darkGreen" and "maroon" as built-in color choices.
• Using dates in numeric data entry is now more flexible.
• Calculation of interquartile range for box & whisker and violin plots was improved for small data sets.
• In some MacOS versions, editing labels in place lost a view of the plot until editing was done. The plot now stays visible while editing labels.
• You can now copy a single line of text from another application and paste into a plot as a new text label.
• For unclear reasons, plot windows would miss arrow key events used to move annotations one pixel at a time. The issue is better now.
• All coding was updated to most recent Apple methods (i.e. removed deprecated coding methods). This update means PublishPlot must now require MacOS High Sierra (10.13) or newer.

Version 2.6 - October 2022

• A new exponential smoothing option was add to data transformations.
• Added "plus" and "star" plot symbols.
• The Box & Whisker options can now do plots with or without outliers and they adjust better if you change the box width (using Size field in the "Error Bars / Statistics" section).
• New statistics options for Violin plots with or without outliers.
• The color to fill boxes or probability densities in Box & Whisker or Violin plots can now be set for each data set.
• Can now set preferred fill colors (that previously used the background color) and selecting background and fill color opacity in settings was fixed.
• Various, minor bug fixes were implemented.

Version 2.5 - May 2021

• Bar charts added in v2.4 caused a minor bug in enabling one option for data transformations. The bug is fixed (and purpose of this small update)
• A new tool bar icon was added for "Add Data Set..." menu command. Furthermore, the default tool bar includes this new icon and removes the prior "Export PDF" icon. The tool bar can be customized to choose among these icons if your prefer.

Version 2.4 - April 2021

• PublishPlot can now do bar charts as a built-in feature by using text strings for the x values in plot data instead of numbers or dates.
• If a pasted plot table fails to create a plot, the reason why is now explained in better error messaging.
• To support bar charts, horizontal and vertical bar symbols where changed to be drawn from the plot value to 0 (if zero is in the plotted range) instead of to the edge of the plot area.
• Commands used in plot tables, such as #setName, are now case insensitive.
• A new web site was started where you can download scripts for PublishPlot. These scripts allow users to make use of the "Scripts" menu without needing to write the scripts themselves.
• To support some options written into the downloadable scripts, many new features were added to the scripting options of PublishPlot:
  • You can now assign keyboard equivalents to any commands that appear in the "Scripts" menu.
  • The export pdf scripting command previously failed due to App Store restrictions. You can now use the command provided you export to your "Pictures" folder.
  • A new scripting command, get limits, makes it easy to find range of plotted data set.
  • The plot data attribute for plotted data sets was updated to use labels for x data in bar charts.
  • A new atribute sorted data gets list of all points in a data set sorted by x value. For bar charts, it gets a list sorted alphabetically by x labels.
  • Attributes selected plot, plot size, bar chart, and refreshed were added to plot documents.
  • Attribute text size was added to plot labels.

Version 2.3 - March 2021

• Symbols can now be filled with a pattern instead of just solid colors. The space between pattern lines can be customized and a default "Pattern line spacing" can be changed in the settings.
• The Add Data Set... menu command has been enhanced to let you set plot name, line style, and symbol type as it is created.
• If no object is selected, the "Object" tab of the inspector window now has a menu to let you choose a data set to inspect.
• You can now recolor plots using perceptually uniform color schemes. This new feature expands on the previous option that could only convert to B&W or gray scale plots.
• When plotting an expression, the expression was previously evaluated at equally spaced points. You can now alternatively evaluate it at equally spaced points on a log scale. This new options is better when plotting functions using a log scale along the x axis.
• Added AppleScript attribute options to support new features of this version (and one from the previous): pattern type for a "Plotted Data Set" object and pattern spacing, edge color, edge opacity, and use edge color for a "Plot Frame" object.

Version 2.2 - February 2021

• Grid lines can now be drawn at major and/or minor tick locations. Minor ticks and grid lines are drawn slightly thinner than major tick lines.
• You can optionally set a second background color called an "Edge Color". When checked, this color is used around the edge of the plot while the background color is used in the plot area.
• Error bars and statistics graphics are now drawn with symbols, which allows arranging plot data to better show those features in front of other plots.
• Custom axis settings now result in major tick marks with labels at even multiples of the entered tick interval. This change allows both minimum and maximum to be offset from major ticks and labels. Before tick marks and labels always started at the minimum value and sometimes gave undesirable labels.
• Bug fixes:
  • Setting error bar stroke width worked for error bars but not for statistics calculations. It now works for all.
  • Application settings did not record option to draw grid lines at major tick marks. Now fixed and options updated to set grid lines at major and/or minor ticks.
  • Major tick mark labels could previously appear outside the plot limits. Now those labels are limited to the plot range.

Version 2.1 — January 2021

• Compiled as a "Universal" binary to run native on all current Apple chips.
• Added link to help on data transformations to the help index.
• Support for some new functions within expressions for plotting or for data transformations.

Version 2.0 — December 2020

• New statistics features to calculate and plot standard deviations of data or to display data using box & whisker style plots.
• A new "Scripts" menu lets you run any Apple Scripts stored in a selected folder.
• The feature to edit plot data was improved to better track changes and warn you when need to replot (or not) and to keep text version in the edit tab better in synch with other edited features of that data set.
• You can hold dow shift key while dragging arrow and line end points to convert them to horizontal, vertical or diagonal lines.
• Added help topic on how to create bar charts.
• Apple Scripting capabilities were updated to support statistics features and improved for plot annotation shapes.
• Data transforms now correctly transform error bars as well.
• Updated and recompiled in Catalina. One update was to fix a bug where MacOS would call the wrong method if its name conflicted with a new MacOS method name. It affected quoting of plot names.

Version 1.4 — 2018

• Recompiled in Mojave and update to satisfy Apple changes to requirements to be in the AppStore.
• Support Dark Mode in Mojave (although user decides preferred background for plots)
• Various user-interface options have been improved.

Version 1.3 — 2017

• You can add any plain-text plot comments to describe the contents of a plot document.
• The default saved file format is now a plain-text document (with extension ppltj). The previous binary format (with extension pplot) is still allowed.
• The positioning of axes depending on label content and on whether using a box or axes has been improved.
• Various user-interface options have been improved.

Version 1.2 — 10 NOV 2013

• Tick marks can now be inside and/or outside the plot.
• In addition to arrows, you can now add double-headed arrow, line, rectangle, and oval shapes to a plot.
• An opacity option can be used to make the plot background transparent when dragging it to other software.
• The fill color for symbols and shapes can also use opacity.
• The scripting features were extended to handle the new options for tick marks, different shapes, and opacities.
• You can now use arrow keys to reposition text labels and arrows one pixel at a time.
• You can convert color plots to gray scale (previously could only convert to black and white).
• Labels will now transform along with data whenever you are transforming "All Plots."
• Improved options for the "Edit" tab of the inspector window including a pop-up menu to select different data sets and some help by warning you to replot after making changes.
• Plots can now be resized to smaller size (down to 2X2 inches).
• A dragged PDF of a plot will now omit object hi-lighting if any objects are currently selected.
• Fixed problem where selecting text in tool bar items would make it hard to select items in the plot.

Version 1.1 — 1 NOV 2012

• Three new fitting options for y=a*x^b, y=a*exp(b*x), and spline smoothing.
• Can add, subtract, multiple, or divide any two data sets.
• Can fill curves with a solid color (using new data set plot line type).
• New tool bar item to display location in plot coordinates as the mouse hovers over the plot.
• Added plot axis titles to text files created with the Export→Plot Data... menu command and fixed issue dealing with plots having vertical line segments.
• Fixed occasional problem at end of data sets when calculating a spline interpolant.
• Several interface improvements dealing with menu selections in the Data tab of the plot inspector.

Version 1.1 — 17 JUL 2012

• This was the first official release version of PublishPlot.

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