SPSS 19 - "What's new" (first impressions and quirks)

[Frank Furter]

After two days' working with SPSS 19 (including the hotfixes up to 19.0.0.7) under Windows 7 64-bit my first impression is: This is the first "SPSS for Java" version with an acceptable interface performance - not quite as fast as Version 15, but notably improved from version 16 and after

However:

- My SPSS is configured to start with an open syntax window. Although 'Automatically open Error Tracking pane when errors are found' has been deselected in the Options menu, the error pane is opened nevertheless when an error occurs. Furthermore, the syntax window opened at startup also has an open error pane right from the start that fills about half of the window size. How can I get rid of this?

- In the Viewer the syntax commands TITLE and SUBTITLE (issued through syntax) appear in the log, but they do not generate any items in the outline, and the title and subtitle also do not appear at the top of the output pages, i.e., these commands have no effect at all. Have they become obsolete? (However, you can still insert a page title manually using Insert -> New Page Title in the Viewer.)

- It appears to me that the first item on each printet output page has a fixed offset from the upper margin, regardless of how many lines of text (if any) are in the page header (from the second page of an output document onwards, the space between the bottom of the header and the top of the first output item decreases with each new header line until the bottom lines of the header are hidden behind the output item). Is there a way to control the space between the header and the rest of the output?

- Using File -> Page Attributes in the viewer I have entered some text in the header and footer boxes and made it the default for new documents. When I open an output document that has customized headers and footers, or create a new one, these custom headers and footers are not shown in the print preview or in the printout unless I open and close the File -> Page Attributes dialog first (albeit without changing anything).

- When I evoke Syntax Help or Help -> Topics for the first time after starting an SPSS session it takes about 3 minutes until the first text is displayed in the browser and about another 2 or 3 minutes until the browser finishes loading on my PC with an i7-960 CPU, 6 GB of memory, a super fast SSD as the system drive, and Windows 7 64-bit. When I close the browser and evoke the Help system again within the same SPSS session it takes just the time that the browser itself requires to load, but after closing and re-opening SPSS the whole process starts over again. How can this be avoided? Is it possible to "cache" the help system permanently?

- Is it possible to copy customized window toolbars from one SPSS 19 installation to another on a different machine?

Any comments and suggestions are appreciated.


Greetings from Germany
Andreas Voelp

[John F Hall]

Sounds like a nightmare!  I'm sticking to 18 and 32-bit running under
Windows XP on my cranky old 1gb memory 2003 hp pavilion with the hardware
accelerator turned right down because the screenshots freeze.

John Hall
[hidden email]
http://surveyresearch.weebly.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Andreas Voelp
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 6:14 PM
Subject: SPSS 19 - "What's new" (first impressions and quirks)


After two days' working with SPSS 19 (including the hotfixes up to 19.0.0.7)
under Windows 7 64-bit my first impression is: This is the first "SPSS for
Java" version with an acceptable interface performance - not quite as fast
as Version 15, but notably improved from version 16 and after

However:

- My SPSS is configured to start with an open syntax window. Although
'Automatically open Error Tracking pane when errors are found' has been
deselected in the Options menu, the error pane is opened nevertheless when
an error occurs. Furthermore, the syntax window opened at startup also has
an open error pane right from the start that fills about half of the window
size. How can I get rid of this?

- In the Viewer the syntax commands TITLE and SUBTITLE (issued through
syntax) appear in the log, but they do not generate any items in the
outline, and the title and subtitle also do not appear at the top of the
output pages, i.e., these commands have no effect at all. Have they become
obsolete? (However, you can still insert a page title manually using Insert
-> New Page Title in the Viewer.)

- It appears to me that the first item on each printet output page has a
fixed offset from the upper margin, regardless of how many lines of text (if
any) are in the page header (from the second page of an output document
onwards, the space between the bottom of the header and the top of the first
output item decreases with each new header line until the bottom lines of
the header are hidden behind the output item). Is there a way to control the
space between the header and the rest of the output?

- Using File -> Page Attributes in the viewer I have entered some text in
the header and footer boxes and made it the default for new documents. When
I open an output document that has customized headers and footers, or create
a new one, these custom headers and footers are not shown in the print
preview or in the printout unless I open and close the File -> Page
Attributes dialog first (albeit without changing anything).

- When I evoke Syntax Help or Help -> Topics for the first time after
starting an SPSS session it takes about 3 minutes until the first text is
displayed in the browser and about another 2 or 3 minutes until the browser
finishes loading on my PC with an i7-960 CPU, 6 GB of memory, a super fast
SSD as the system drive, and Windows 7 64-bit. When I close the browser and
evoke the Help system again within the same SPSS session it takes just the
time that the browser itself requires to load, but after closing and
re-opening SPSS the whole process starts over again. How can this be
avoided? Is it possible to "cache" the help system permanently?

- Is it possible to copy customized window toolbars from one SPSS 19
installation to another on a different machine?

Any comments and suggestions are appreciated.


Greetings from Germany
Andreas Voelp
--
View this message in context:
http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/SPSS-19-What-s-new-first-impressions-and-quirks-tp3281566p3281566.html
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

[Maguin, Eugene]

Andreas,

Here's a tiny thing I'm particularly curious about because it irritates the
crap out of me. Let me acknowledge that while I have this problem--a
characterization spss won't agree with--on my computer, a 32 bit XP
professional 2002, service pack 3 Dell, others may not.

The tiny thing is this: Given at least two lines of syntax and placing the
cursor at the end of line 1 and turning overtype on and then typing an
additional characters causes the following line to collapse into the current
line. Subsequent keystrokes overtype the previous line 2.

Prior to, I think, 17 this did not occur. In short, the editor functioned as
does Word (US English version) or a text editting program such as
multi-edit.

So, I'm curious. Is this tiny thing still there?

Gene Maguin



-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Andreas Voelp
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 12:14 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: SPSS 19 - "What's new" (first impressions and quirks)

After two days' working with SPSS 19 (including the hotfixes up to 19.0.0.7)
under Windows 7 64-bit my first impression is: This is the first "SPSS for
Java" version with an acceptable interface performance - not quite as fast
as Version 15, but notably improved from version 16 and after

However:

- My SPSS is configured to start with an open syntax window. Although
'Automatically open Error Tracking pane when errors are found' has been
deselected in the Options menu, the error pane is opened nevertheless when
an error occurs. Furthermore, the syntax window opened at startup also has
an open error pane right from the start that fills about half of the window
size. How can I get rid of this?

- In the Viewer the syntax commands TITLE and SUBTITLE (issued through
syntax) appear in the log, but they do not generate any items in the
outline, and the title and subtitle also do not appear at the top of the
output pages, i.e., these commands have no effect at all. Have they become
obsolete? (However, you can still insert a page title manually using Insert
-> New Page Title in the Viewer.)

- It appears to me that the first item on each printet output page has a
fixed offset from the upper margin, regardless of how many lines of text (if
any) are in the page header (from the second page of an output document
onwards, the space between the bottom of the header and the top of the first
output item decreases with each new header line until the bottom lines of
the header are hidden behind the output item). Is there a way to control the
space between the header and the rest of the output?

- Using File -> Page Attributes in the viewer I have entered some text in
the header and footer boxes and made it the default for new documents. When
I open an output document that has customized headers and footers, or create
a new one, these custom headers and footers are not shown in the print
preview or in the printout unless I open and close the File -> Page
Attributes dialog first (albeit without changing anything).

- When I evoke Syntax Help or Help -> Topics for the first time after
starting an SPSS session it takes about 3 minutes until the first text is
displayed in the browser and about another 2 or 3 minutes until the browser
finishes loading on my PC with an i7-960 CPU, 6 GB of memory, a super fast
SSD as the system drive, and Windows 7 64-bit. When I close the browser and
evoke the Help system again within the same SPSS session it takes just the
time that the browser itself requires to load, but after closing and
re-opening SPSS the whole process starts over again. How can this be
avoided? Is it possible to "cache" the help system permanently?

- Is it possible to copy customized window toolbars from one SPSS 19
installation to another on a different machine?

Any comments and suggestions are appreciated.


Greetings from Germany
Andreas Voelp
--
View this message in context:
http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/SPSS-19-What-s-new-first-impre
ssions-and-quirks-tp3281566p3281566.html
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

[Frank Furter]

Gene Maguin wrote

So, I'm curious. Is this tiny thing still there?

No, it's not. When I place the cursor at the end of the first line, turn overtype on and then type any number of additional characters the cursor just continues in the first line.

I must admit, however, that I haven't noticed the behavour that you have described in version 18 as well.

Andreas