There are many new features in this second major release of Fathom. The new features are described below, with links to the appropriate section of Help for details. However, at least as important as new features are the many hundreds of small improvements that will make learning Fathom an easier experience for both newcomers and experienced users.
A new and easy-to-use interface makes it possible to import historical and current census microdata containing more than 50 attributes about individuals who filled out the long form of the census.
See Import U.S. Census Microdata from IPUMS.
Fathom 2 recognizes and understands units, from pounds to fathoms. This means you can now have data that answer the question "How many what's?" Unit designations appear on graphs and other objects. You can easily convert from one unit to another; formulaic computations respect units and can include explicit mention of units.
See Manage Units in a Case Table or Manage Units in the Collection's Inspector.
See Units for a comprehensive list of built-in units Fathom recognizes.
Fathom now includes the text editor that comes with The Geometer's Sketchpad Version 4. Not only can you format your descriptions of your work to your heart's content, you can even create mathematical expressions with symbols, fractions, subscripts and superscripts, and much more.
See Format Text in Text Objects.
Colors are used to tie elements together; for example, both the case table and the Cases panel have the same blue shading. Computed values show a gray background. Empty cells have a yellow background. Attribute names, measure names, functions, units, slider names, and constants each have a unique color that is used wherever that kind of word appears.
This profound change both solves many graphing problems present in Version 1 and makes possible a host of new graphs.
See Add Another Attribute to an Already Occupied Axis.
You can now link axes so that their scales match, and stay matched, even when rescaled.
See Dynamically Link Axes to Each Other.
Now graphs have their own inspectors that allow you to change the size of points and axis bounds, determine whether axes will automatically rescale, and even change the direction of increasing numbers.
Two bar charts, one with side-by-side bars and the other with bars split into multiple groups, are now possible.
See Bar Chart and Split Bar Chart.
In Fathom 1 the squares of residuals could only be shown for lines. Now they can be shown for plotted functions. The sum of squares is shown, as well.
See Show Squares.
Now you can add any number of movable lines to a bivariate plot.
When a scatter plot has been split with a legend attribute, or with multiple attributes on an axis, computing a fitted line shows the line and its equation for each cell rather than a single line for all the data.
See Least-Squares Line and Median-Median Line.
As your mouse moves over a line or plotted function in a bivariate graph, a red dot appears indicating where you are, and the coordinates of the dot appear in the status bar. By clicking the mouse, you can display the coordinates directly in the graph.
See Trace on a Function or Fitted Line.
While preserving ease of use for getting started with sliders, Fathom 2 greatly increases slider usefulness: control animation speed, restrict values to multiples, compute slider value with a formula, refer to collection attributes and measures in a slider formula, allow self-reference in slider formulas.
See Work with Dynamic Parameters (Sliders) or Slider Properties Panel.
The statistical objects include a linear model object as well as interval estimates and hypothesis tests.
See Build a Linear Model.
This new statistical object brings important statistical capabilities to Fathom's dynamic dragging environment. It has its own set of attributes for working with predicted and residual values.
See Multiple Regression.
Add numeric attributes to both dimensions of a summary table, and you get a flexible correlation matrix.
The summary table now lets you add a set of basic statistics and/or the five-number statistics to a summary table with menu commands.
See Add or Remove a Summary Table's Formulas, Add Basic Statistics, or Add Five-Number Summary.
Select a Fathom object and duplicate it. This really helps when you've gone to a lot of trouble to get something just the right size, with the right attributes on it, and the perfect format; and now you want another one that you'll modify just a bit.
See Duplicate [Object].
You have two different collections and there is an attribute they both have that can serve as a key for looking up values. Drag this attribute from one case table to its mate in the other case table to join the two collections. The information in the first is looked up in the second.
See Add Attributes from Another Case Table Using Table Join.
· Move selected objects with keyboard arrows.
· If a case table or text object is selected, Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End keys will navigate through it.
· If no case table or text object is selected, Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End keys will navigate through the document.
· It is now much easier to navigate through the case table and inspector tables with the keyboard. When editing attribute names in a case table, Tab will take you to the next attribute. When editing attribute, measure, or category names in an inspector, Enter or Return will take you to the next attribute.
See Keyboard Shortcuts.
The categories displayed in many graphs and summary tables can now be sorted.
See Sort Data in a Graph.
See Sort Categories in a Summary Table.
Get control over how categorical attributes behave: control their order, force null categories to appear in graphs and tests (for example, in a dice-rolling experiment, when you didn't get any 3s) using the Category Sets feature.
See Control Behavior of Categorical Attributes Using Category Sets.
You no longer have to show a formula editor to make a simple change to a value in a statistical object. (But you still can if you need to.)
See Enter Summary Statistics in Statistical Inference Objects.
There a few more preferences, which Fathom remembers the next time you launch it: three default font sizes, an option to not show statistical objects on the shelf (to be less confusing to nonstatistics users), an option for the display of linear equations, the ability to set the default verbosity of statistical objects.
See Preferences.
Sorting data in a case table now changes the order of cases in the underlying collection. In addition, changing the order of attributes in the case table affects that order in inspectors, and vice versa.
You can now select more than one attribute in a case table and put them all in a graph, summary table, or statistical object with one drag-and-drop move.
The formula editor was probably the least-loved object in Fathom 1. It has been much improved for Version 2. The changes that are most obvious are:
· Enter or Return now not only accepts the formula, but dismisses the formula editor.
· You can change the size of the font used in editing a formula. If you're having trouble, use a bigger font.
· The "left side" of the equation is displayed, indicating that you don't need to type that.
· You can edit a long number by clicking within it and editing (rather than having to replace the whole thing).
· If you want to replace a "nugget" within a complex expression, you can now select what you want to replace and type on top of it. Don't delete the offending bit first; just replace it.
· Measures now live in their own list, rather than mixed up with attributes.
· We've changed the look, rearranged the buttons, and increased the font size for the formula itself. Note, the exponent button is now labeled with a ^.
· When the cursor is in a denominator or exponent, a tip appears informing the user that the right arrow key will move the cursor out of the denominator or exponent.
Under many, but not all, circumstances in which Fathom 1 would rerandomize all computed values, Version 2 will only rerandomize directly affected values.
· You can now copy a picture of an object (especially a graph) even when cases are selected.
· Double-clicking a column boundary in the case table automatically resizes that column to be the right width to show all its values. A menu command allows you to do this to multiple columns or all columns.
· Clicking on cells in a summary table selects all the cases corresponding to that cell. If all the cases corresponding to a cell are selected, the cell highlights.
· The command File | Open Sample Document takes you directly into the Sample Documents folder so you don't have to search for it (provided your sample documents are stored in the same folder as the application).
· The Help menu has commands that will open your Web browser to useful online locations.
Key Curriculum Press/Key College Publishing www.keypress.com/fathom |