Expyriment 0.8.0 released!

[Florian Krause]

Expyriment 0.8.0 has just been released!

This release includes many new features as well as important changes and bug

fixes (for a full list, please see below).

You can download the new version from www.expyriment.org/getit. Please note

that the method to install Expyriment has been changed/improved. The new

documentation provides detailed information on how to install Expyriment on

each supported operating system.

We strongly recommend to uninstall the previous Expyriment version, before

installing Expyriment 0.8.0!

We would also like to annonuce two new additional channels to communicate with

us and other users, ask questions and discuss all things Expyriment:

- Expyriment is now on reddit.com (in form of the subreddit /r/expyriment)

- Expyriment has now an official IRC channel (#expyriment on irc.freenode.org)

Version 0.8.0 (30 Jun 2015)

---------------------------

New Features:

- antialiasing option for stimuli.Ellipse() and stimuli.Circle()

- new class: misc.HSVColour. Class to handle HSV colours [hue, saturation, value] 

- new function: quiting wait or event loops by callback_function, if this function

  returns an instance of the new class control.CallbackQuitEvent

- new method: all visual stimuli have methods for lowlevel Pygame operations

  get_surface_copy(), set_surface(), get_pixel_array()

- new stimulus: stimuli.extras.ThermometerDisplay

- new io device: io.extras.TbvNetworkClient

- new io device: io.extras.TcpClient

- new stimulus: GaborPatches can be created with stimuli.extras.GaborPatch();

  the stimulus depends on the package "matplotlib".

- new feature: data_preprocessing method sallow now to read in only certain

  variables (see parameter `read_variables`)

- new feature: Expyriment asks in interactive mode if initializing a fullscreen

- new method: stimulus.visual.scale_to_fullscreen

- new class: design.extras.StimulationProtocol

- new method in data_preprocessing: save to to R data frame

- new method in data_preprocessing: get_experiment_duration

- new method/property: misc.get_monitor_resolution & Screen.monitor_resolution

- new mouse function: experiments can be quited by mouse events (triple click);

  see documentation of property "mouse_quit_event". This function is only switched

  on per default under Android

- new method visual stimuli.replace

- new method control.is_android_running

- several new options for command line interface

- get_module_hash_dictionary: dictionary secure hashes from all modules

  imported from local folder

- new constant: ALL_KEYPAD_DIGITS

- new helper functions in misc and control

- new feature: control.set_skip_wait_functions

- io.Keyboard has static methods to set and get the quit_key and pause_key

- new feature: too long text lines will be trimmed automatically if the 

  max_width parameter has been defined

- new feature: too long words in text boxes will be trimmed automatically, 

  this function can be switch off

- new feature: improved functionality of randomize.shuffle_list

- Test suite summarizes delay histograms for visual presentations

- control.defaults.blocking_mode for setting the blocking_mode

- new io.ParallelPort implementation, based on PsychoPy code; it now

  supports reading of 5 status pins (10, 11, 12, 13, 15) and all 8 data pins;

  in addition, the module now works on 64bit Windows system

- Test suite: New ParallelPort test

- stimuli.extra.DotCloud: DotCloud can be multi coloured (see make method)

- lots of documentation improvements

Changed:

- ATTENTION: Open_GL is now also used in window mode and will not be switch

  off automatically, if Expyriment is not running in fullscreen mode.

- ATTENTION: extra modules will not anymore be imported automatically. Please 

  call `import.<module_name>.extras`, if you want to use extra features.

- ATTENTION: io.screen.open_gl and control.defaults.open_gl have new parameters::

    0/False - No OpenGL (no vsync / no blocking)

    1       - OpenGL (vsync / no blocking)

    2/True  - OpenGL (vsync / blocking)

    3       - OpenGL (vsync / alternative blocking)

- ATTENTION: stimuli.Ellipse is now defined by radii (Not backwards compatible!)

- ATTENTION: stimuli.Circle is now defined by radius (Not backwards compatible!)

- ATTENTION: two obsolete stimuli stimuli.Frame and stimuli.Dot (see doc)

- ATTENTION: ParallelPort has been changed a lot and is not backwards compatible

  anymore; the old implementation is still available as

  io.extras.SimpleParallelPort

- the property Shape.size has been renamed to shape.shape_size

- stimuli.Rectangle: is_point_inside is now obsolete

- stimuli.Shape: is_point_inside and is_shape_overlapping are now obsolete

- stimuli.Fixcross: fixcross_size parameter and cross_size property are now

  obsolete

- changes to Simon example

Fixed:

- bug in io.TouchScreenButton crash if duration expired

- bug in command line interface: order of argument is now irrelevant

- keypad bug in TextInput

- unicode bug in TextMenu

- bug in anti_aliasing shapes

- some method parameters that require a list and didn't work with tuples 

- stimuli with odd dimensions missed a pixel in each dimension in OpenGL mode

- bug in stimuli.Audio.unload() and stimuli.Video.unload()

- bug in io.ParallelPort.poll (now io.extras.SimpleParallelPort)

- bug in Shape: shapes now comensate for the Pygame bug of extended polygons 

  along the horizontal axes

- bug in stimuli.extras.DotCloud: colour of dots could not be changed