visualdatatools.com

[Stan]

Hi, I have a problem with using DataTank. I admit, that it is new philosophy for someone who is used to work with other program and it might be my big problem too. I need also to get used to this. But what makes me frustrated is, that there is actually no manual, coherent one, for the DataTank. Even trying used the online tutorial (with few simple examples) does not correspond what is on my monitor. Small example: importing the data from the file into array, the columns can be edited in the array variable, as shown in the online video, but it is impossible to do that. Is it automatic?, should I click somehow specially?

I would really welcome the compact manual with examples, than the rest would be easier. The breakpoint for the real beginner to comprehend the philosophy is really very hard to cross over without appropriate manual and examples. I think I am quite experienced used of mathematical software and other stuff.

I have no problems with DataGraph whatsoever but this case will probably kill me:-) I think I could expect the better manual for 590 USD.

regards
Stan

[David]

I will work on this. There are sample scripts on-line, the built in help (the little ? buttons in the lower right corners) and an on-line help in the Help menu. There is a pdf document that accessible from the Help menu.

Let's move to e-mail so that I can see where you are stuck. I am doing a writeup on the structure with an eye towards getting people started.

It is an issue that I am aware of, and what I've done is to work with people through e-mail to get them going with their data set. The issue is that there are about 70 data types, 7 different drawing "programs" and about 2,000 built in computational actions. There is also a large C++ library that makes it easy to create your own actions in C++. DataTank is imposing initially and it is a non-trivial project to explain it fully. I've written a few hundred pages of help and scattered it in and around the application and more is needed.

There is a separate discussion section for DataTank, and you can also send questions there. But most often people use e-mail, and the typical pattern is that there is a week or so of "slight" frustration and then it starts making more sense. It is possible that editing a table has changed from when I created the help document. The table view from Apple changed in 10.5 or 10.6. I've had to overwrite Apple's implementation to get things to work the way I want it, and since DataTank was started more than 10 years ago, there might be parts where I haven't fixed the default table. Send me a screen shot of the part that isn't working as you expected.

David