Desmos API v1.9.0 released

[desmos-api-announce]

Desmos Studio PBC is very happy to announce the release of version 1.9.0 of the Desmos API. 

• Change log

• Documentation

This release is part of our scheduled release cycle, and we recommend all users upgrade to this version. Benefits of upgrading include:

• remaining consistent with what students see on high-stakes tests where Desmos Calculators are embedded in the test platform.

• offering an experience for students in your product similar to the one at desmos.com.

• ensuring the best interaction with the latest browsers and platforms.

We will help all of our partners upgrade to version 1.9.0 in a timely fashion. Please email Chris Lusto (ch...@desmos.com) with any questions. 

These technical release notes are intended for developers who incorporate the Desmos API into their own applications. We ask kindly that you do not forward this email to your customers. If you’d like a user-facing summary to send to your customers (districts, teachers, etc.), or for other product inquiries, please contact Meaghan Maguire (mea...@desmos.com) or email partne...@desmos.com.

New Features:

Version 1.9.0 adds the ability to plot using logarithmic scales, introduces a new function for generating tones and music, and extends list comprehensions to work with intervals.

1. Logarithmic scales. It is now possible to set one or both axes to use logarithmic scales instead of the default linear mode. This allows you to visualize exponential or power functions as linear relationships, helps explore key features of different functions, and makes it easier to plot data that spans many orders of magnitude.

2. Tone function. The new tone() function takes frequency and gain arguments and combines them to generate the corresponding tone. This allows users to play individual notes, create scales and melodies, and merge tones to generate rich musical compositions.

3. Interval comprehensions. Comprehensions have been extended so that they can now operate over intervals in addition to lists. This allows users to more easily generalize plots from point lists to curves, e.g., to find a locus.

New API Features:

1. Added logScales constructor option to the graphing calculator to control whether logarithmic axis scales may be used (defaults to true).

2. Added xAxisScale and yAxisScale graph settings to control the scales of the x and y axes. These may be set to 'linear' or 'logarithmic' and default to 'linear'.

3. Added graphDescription graph setting to override the automatically generated description that is set for the graph paper element. The value may be a string or undefined. Default is undefined. See Accessibility Notes.

4. Added GraphingCalculator.withHistoryReplacement method to the graphing calculator, providing a way to modify the calculator state without adding new entries to the undo/redo history.

5. Added tone option to control whether the tone() function is enabled (defaults to true).

6. Added showMovablePoints option for screenshots, which renders movable points with their halo.

7. Added muted option for globally muting and unmuting expressions that use tone().

8. Added the ability to create and update notes via GraphingCalculator.setExpression().

Code Updates:

1. The substitutions option now controls the availability of both "with" substitutions and list/interval comprehensions. In previous versions, this option only controlled the availability of "with" substitutions, and there was no way to disable list comprehensions.

2. Note that the general audio option will now also disable use of the tone() function. There is a separate tone option if you only want to disable the tone() function but leave other, accessibility-related tone generation (for audio trace) enabled.