Introducing Oriana Version 3

Oriana ver. 3 has had a complete makeover, with a new, improved user interface, a large number of enhancements to the graphs, new data handling features and many other additions.

New Features in Version 3

General features

• New user interface
• Multiple toolbars that can be placed at any position around the main window, or can be set to float outside of the main window. Buttons shown on each toolbar can be customized.
• Multipage dialog boxes (e.g. for graphs and statistics) now have tabs down the left side for easier access, particularly for graph dialogs with numerous pages.
• Graph window now has improved tabs scheme to allow user to more easily find specific graphs when a large number have been created. The tabs now run down the left hand side, and the tab for each graph is now labeled with the variable(s) used. Multiple graphs created at the same time are grouped together under a tab labeled with the graph type and the time created.
• User can select from a number of different color schemes, many with attractive gradient effects.
• Full Vista compatibility.
• Now uses standard Windows XP/Vista file open and save dialog boxes.

Data handling

• Implemented filtering, restricting analyses and graphs to just cases that meet a certain criterion (e.g. Angle > 90 or Month = June).
• Circular data can now be entered as x/y coordinates defining the beginning and ending point of a vector. The new Data|Convert XY to Vector command can then be used to convert those points into vectors (angle and length).
• Added a Data|Define Vector Pair option to flag pairs of Angle/Linear variables that define a vector. These pairs can then be used to automatically pick the correct pair of variables in the two-variable graph dialogs, to calculate weighted mean angle in basic statistics, and to draw a weighted mean vector in the graphs.
• Modified data editor to work more like Excel - typing into a cell in edit mode replaces contents, not appends as it previously did, and tab key now moves cell focus to the right.
• Added export of results to an Excel file.
• Added import of Excel 2007/2010 files.
• Added option to export all result pages at once, rather than having to do each page separately.
• Added two new variables types, Circular Proportional and Circular Percentage. These are circular variables, but rather than setting and reporting the angle as values between 0°-360°, the proportion (0-1) or percentage (0-100) of the circumference of the circle are used. For example, an angle of 90° would be a proportion of 0.25 or a percentage of 25. Data are entered or imported in this format and all graphs and statistical results are labeled with these values.

New graph types

• Circular scatterplots - The Two-Variable Vector plot type has been expanded and generalized into a Circular/Linear plot type. This has the option to create a circular scatterplot, where the position of a point on the circular grid indicates the value of the linear variable, and the position around the circular graph its circular variable. An option to have the linear variable represented by a wedge has also been added to the existing vector and bar options.
• Raw Data Plots - A number of new forms of raw data plots have been added. Besides the type in Oriana 2, where the points extend from the outer margin inwards, the points can now extend from the margin outwards, or from the center outwards. The raw data plots have been moved to a separate menu item from the histogram types.

New graph options

• The segments in two-variable histograms can now be extensively customized:
• Specify number of segments
• Use a logarithmic scale when dividing data into segments
• Have a separate segment for each unique value
• Set exact boundaries of each segments
• A large number of new options are available for the circular axes:
  • Option to have a more finely divided circular scale (e.g. rather than having cross lines at just 0°, 90°,180°, 270° the user can have lines every 45°, 10° etc.). User can also specify whether the minor divisions should be labeled.
  • Option to specify the number of gridlines on XY graphs (distribution graphs and two-sample scatterplots).
  • User-defined orientation of circular graphs (e.g. user can specify that the 0°/N is placed at the top, right, left or bottom, top-left, etc.).  User can also specify clockwise or counterclockwise direction.
  • Add manual scaling of axes for scatterplots with linear/angle/axial data.
  • Option to use N, E, S, W (& NE, etc.) labels on histograms when plotting regular angle variables.
  • Allow user-defined abbreviations for compass directions. Through the Preferences dialog the user can specify the abbreviations for their local language (e.g. O for Ouest in French rather than W for West). These abbreviations are also used in the data editor as well as other output.
  • User definable decimal places for axis labels.
  • Ability to rotate axis labels for XY graphs and linear histograms.
  • Option for log scaling of the circular grid in circular histograms as well as both axes in XY scatterplots.
  • Option for having the circular scale of histograms labeled with percentage of total frequency rather than the actual frequencies.
  • Option to adjust the diameter of the circle at center of circular histograms.
• A number of new options related to symbols are available:
  • The shape of symbols for raw data and scatterplots/distributions plots can be set by the user.
  • Option on two-variable vector plots, scatterplots, Q-Q plots and distribution plots to plot different symbols or colors for different subgroups on a single graph. With version 2 subgrouped data produced a separate graph for each group.
  • When subgrouped data are being plotted on raw data and scatterplots/distributions plots, each subgroup can be indicated by different symbols, different color, or both.
  • Allow user to specify whether circular scatterplots and raw data plots have symbols rotated around the centre of the graph, or all with same orientation (e.g. triangles pointing out from centre or all pointing up).
• Allow user to set the color of confidence intervals on circular plots that correspond to unreliable standard errors (previously always red).
• Allow user to set thickness of mean/r lines
• Added an option to display a table of frequencies and percentages used to create histograms.
• Option to have mean vector weighted by a linear variable (such as wind speed).
• Added option to export and print all graphs at once, rather than having to do each individually.
• Circular graphs can have a circle showing the critical value of the Rayleigh test. The length of the r vector can then be compared to this circle to assess its significance.

Statistical analyses

• Add calculation of the weighted mean angle, with weighting by length of the vector.
• Add calculation of the basic stats of weighting variable
• Previously F-tests only printed estimated overall mean if p > 0.05 (no significant different between the pairs). Now all estimated overall means are calculated and printed, but those for tests with significant differences are flagged as possibly inaccurate.

Other changes:

• Saving desktop to file has been made more bullet-proof.
• Dialog box settings for common graph options (lines, colors, etc.) are now saved individually for each graph type, whereas before all graphs had the same default settings.
• Edit Graph dialog now goes straight to previous page displayed, rather than the first (main) page. This makes it easier experiment with settings.
• Bug fix: histograms of Day of Week variables were being drawn with the correct 7 classes, but if Edit Graph called then graph was redrawn with 6 classes.
• Fixed X-axis labeling of linear histogram graphs for Day of Week and Week of Year variables (they were both being scaled 0-400).
• Linear histograms of compass directions had N at the origin of the graph, rather than centered on first bar, as in other discrete types. Fixed.
• The ReverseXY Axes option wasn’t reflecting current state when graph edited – checkbox was always unticked. Fixed.
• Fixed Undo/Redo descriptions for the Change Layout option.
• Fixed bug in Chi-square pairwise test where some class width values (like 14) would give range check error. A similar error could sometimes occur with Axial data.
• Previously the Data|Fill dialog was restricted to entering an angle for the mean when doing a von Mises random fill, even if variable was another circular type. Fixed so you can enter means in the appropriate form for the variable type (e.g.12:00 or June).
• The Data|Fill dialog now has an option to do incremental date filling by weeks.
• Improved sorting of the subgrouping variable. Previously it would sort data by numeric index (e.g. the order subgroups appear in the dropdown box). Now it will sort subgroup data alphabetically or numerically.
• Speeded up adding new graphs when there are a large number of previous graphs.
• Fixed bug that caused last five months (Aug.-Dec.) in a basic stats report to be printed in a random order.

Details of minor updates since the initial release of ver. 3 can be found here.

The new features introduced in Version 2 can be viewed here.