November 19, 2008

The Mathematica 7 Release

Mathematica 7 was released today (okay, late last night). It has been under active development for 18 months. While not as gigantic in scope as Mathematica 6, it's still a very solid, feature-filled upgrade.

The headlining features for version 7 are:

A list of all major new features is available here. In addition to the highly publicized features, here is an incomplete list of other improvements I worked on for this release:
  • QuickLook plugin provides previews for notebook documents on Mac OS X 10.5
  • text & cell selections use system highlight color rather than XOR drawing
  • better sub-pixel accuracy of screen drawing & vector graphics export
  • BezierCurve support for EPS & PDF Export, and PDF Import
  • PDF export can attach arbitrary files (including the source notebook) to the exported PDF file
  • PDF import can read file attachments
  • PDF import of encrypted files works with default (empty) or user-supplied password
  • decreased EPS & PDF export file sizes in some cases
  • decreased notebook file sizes in some cases
  • ControllerState supports MIDI devices (e.g. keyboards, mixers, etc.) on Mac OS X
Additionally, the minimum Mac OS X version increased from 10.3 to 10.4.

4 comments:

Melissa said...

neat.

gutzville said...

My biggest complaint about Mathematica was that it would not show the steps for my homework. Does the new version do that?

Anonymous said...

VEEEEEEEERY INTERESTING!!!!!! I haven't A CLUE, but am EXTREMELY IMPRESSED !!!!!!!! luv and hugs, nan

Ragfield said...

No, John. Though I have heard talk about what more we can do in the future to support lazy students.