5.7 Changes
Unchangeable Constants have been added. These behave exactly the same as Constants, but can’t be changed when setting up a simulation. They are useful for preventing sliders in SyntheSim, reducing the number of things that a model user can change, and working with the VECTOR SELECT function. Unchangeable Constants are defined by a double equal sign ==. Models using Unchangeable Constants will not work in version of Vensim prior to 5.7.
Professional and DSS only: A new function VECTOR SELECT has been added. This function can sometimes be used in place of the PROD, SUM, VMAX and VMIN functions to improve Causal Tracing and speed simulation.
Professional and DSS only: The optimizer has been substantially modified to increase efficiency and provide more direct control of convergence. The interpretation of the fractional tolerance specified has been changed somewhat to accomplish this.
DLL only: vensim_get_data when called with 0 as the final argument will return the exact number of data points required and not the maximum required for any variable.
Bug Fixes
PLE Only: Models created with hidden variables when opened in Vensim PLE would not display the hidden variables but only the arrows.
Published model packages with international characters in the filename, or the path the file was contained in, were not opening.
Reader Only: Venapps opening a run control dialog were not listing the loaded runs.
Importing spreadsheets saved in early Excel formats was not properly converting international characters.
Text in WingDings and other nonstandard fonts was being rendered in the Latin1 character set.
During optimization and sensitivity simulation memory usage was increasing unnecessarily.
Units checking on MIN, MAX and some other functions was sensitive to the order of arguments when one argument was a number.
Variables graphed from Gaming runs would sometimes display anomalous points.
Exported table values when time was running down did not paste correctly into Excel.
