Warning

DEVise 1.5 is not yet released software, so there are some things that you should be aware of if you decide to use it:

• The user documentation is not up-to-date, so many new features in 1.5 are not documented (and changes to existing features aren't documented, either).
• Because DEVise 1.5 hasn't gone through release testing, some features that worked in 1.3 no longer work in 1.5 (most of these are pretty minor, though).
• New alpha releases of the software may occur at any time, and each alpha release is not fully tested.
• The format of the data source catalog has changed between 1.3 and 1.5, so you can't share data sources between them.

Improvements

Overall, DEVise 1.5 has many improvements relative to 1.3. Some of these improvements are:

• Some SQL processing (select, join, group by, etc.) is available.
• Most data source types now use a new (more powerful) schema format.
• Tasvir (image display) and EmbeddedTk are launched automatically when necessary.
• EmbeddedTk symbols work better.
• Some symbols can now be rotated.
• Text symbols can show non-string attributes.
• Printing works better, especially printing of views containing EmbeddedTk symbols.
• It is now possible to use the Stop button during long draws.
• There are a number of improvements to the user interface.
• A number of bugs have been fixed.
• If you do find a bug, you're more likely to get it fixed in 1.5 than in 1.3.
• If you want to write your own DEVise client, there are improvements in 1.5 that make this an easier task than it is for 1.3.
• 1.5 deals much more efficiently with data with large numbers of strings.
• 1.5 has a better color allocation scheme.
• 1.5 has more advanced three-dimensional capabilities.
• 1.5 has a new type of link (set link) that is somewhat like a record link, but more flexible (you can link on any attribute, not just record ID).
• 1.5 has collaboration capabilities allowing several users to work together on a given session.
• Alignment can be changed for some symbol types.

It's up to you to decide whether the improvements in 1.5 make dealing with the hassles of alpha software worthwhile. When there are big problems, they usually get fixed pretty quickly, because those of us working on the DEVise project all run 1.5.