figscribe 0.3.0

The installers for macOS (Apple silicon), Windows and Linux are attached to this release a few minutes after it is published. They are not signed: macOS and Windows ask once to confirm the first start (see the README). The Windows installer and the AppImage have been built and started in CI, but not tried on hardware yet. pip install figscribe works as before.

• Installers for macOS, Windows and Linux. Each release carries a disk image
  for Apple silicon Macs, an installer for Windows and an AppImage for Linux, so
  figscribe runs without Python or pip. They are not signed: macOS asks once to
  confirm opening the app (right-click, Open), and Windows SmartScreen shows
  "More info", then "Run anyway". The AppImage needs libxcb-cursor0. Intel Macs,
  ARM Linux and .deb/Flatpak are not built; pip install works everywhere
  (decision 0066).

• The installers carry the licenses of what is in them. A
  THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt lists the packages in each installer, with their
  license texts, the LGPL for Qt with where its source is, and Python's license;
  LICENSE.txt is figscribe's own. They are in the program's licenses folder,
  beside the app in the macOS disk image, in the install folder on Windows (whose
  installer shows the license first) and in the AppImage. An installer is not
  built when a package it contains has no license file.

• Help > About figscribe says which licenses figscribe is under: MIT, Qt (through
  PySide6) under the LGPL-3.0, and where the licenses of the rest are.

• Fixed: a script written into a folder behind a link could not find its
  data. The script works out its folder with every link followed, but the
  path to the data was worked out from the folder as it was named, so on macOS
  (where /tmp and the temporary folders are links) it was off by a level.

• Export as TIFF and EPS, and with a transparent background. Export
  Figure… and Export All Figures… offer TIFF (LZW compressed, at the figure's
  dpi) and EPS; File > Export with a Transparent Background leaves out the white
  background of PNG, TIFF and SVG.

• An Allan deviation can be fitted. Fit… is offered on it, with
  the error bars as weights, a fit range in τ, a smooth curve along the log axis
  and residuals; the generated script fits the same points. A new Power law
  model (a·x^b) fits the slope of white noise, −1/2.

• Unsaved work survives a crash. Every minute figscribe writes the changes
  not yet saved to <project>.figscribe.autosave next to the project (for an
  untitled project, to its data folder); the next time the project is opened it
  offers to recover them. A save or a close removes the file.

• **Histogram, Allan deviation, image and color mesh have their settings
  arranged: Label and data says what is plotted, Look how; the
  color bar is one box with its settings under it (it was a box and a section),
  and an image's extent, first row and pixel shape are in the folded Pixel grid.

• **A fit and its residuals have their settings arranged: the fit's
  result card sits under Label and data, Look has how the curve is drawn,
  and the residuals' zero line is a section of its own, a box with its settings
  under it.

• **A note, a reference line and a shaded range have their settings in sections
  by what they are for: a note has Text and
  Place (with Position in, which its position is read in), lines and ranges
  Label and data with Legend entry first, then Look.

• Fixed: the script of a fit whose range keeps no row. After narrowing the
  range of a fitted plot (or of the fit) to one without a point, the exported
  script stopped with "ydata must not be empty". It now draws no fit, as the
  figure does, and says why in a comment; the problem list says so too, at the fit.

• The settings of an axis are found with Ctrl+K. log, symlog, limits,
  range, ticks, prefix and more find the axis's scale, range, ticks and
  label, also when only the panel or a plot is selected: choosing one opens that
  axis on the setting. A setting that waits for another, such as Linear within ±
  on a linear axis, is no longer offered.

• A note's arrow is made in the figure. Right-click a note and choose Add an
  arrow; select the note and right-click where the arrow should point:
  Point the note's arrow here. Remove the note's arrow takes it away. The
  numbers in the property panel still work, and their tip says how to do it by
  clicking.

• Finding by what a thing is known as. Find Setting or Action (Ctrl+K)
  now also knows other words: band, region, highlight or threshold find
  the shaded range and the reference lines, arrow and callout the note,
  heatmap the color mesh, residuals the fit, downsample the setting
  Fewer points, and so on. An entry found by its name comes before one found by
  another word. The empty property panel says where to look.

• The toolbar's adding buttons show what they make. Data, Figure,
  Panel, Plot, Fit, Note and a new Reference each have a picture of
  their own instead of the same plus, in two groups (what holds, and what goes
  into a panel). Plot, like Panel and Reference, opens a menu with Add Plot…
  and the kinds (Histogram, Allan deviation, Color mesh …), which opens
  the dialog on the one chosen; the entries of these menus have pictures;
  Reference adds a vertical or horizontal line or a shaded range. Insert >
  Add Line or Range is now Insert > Add Reference, and Insert > Add Plot
  As lists the kinds. In a narrow window the toolbar shows the icons alone
  instead of hiding buttons behind the » menu.

• A gallery of twelve examples on the start page, with a picture each: a
  Gaussian scan, a noisy sensor (the means of a minute over the raw line), an
  RC discharge, a freezing plateau (°C by a formula, a second axis), a
  resonance, a diode's current on a symmetric log axis, a growth curve, a
  calibration, a distribution, the stability of a clock, a beam profile (a color
  map) and a paper figure. A click asks for a folder and opens a copy of the
  example there. The data are generated, not measured. On the start page, the recent
  projects now come before the layouts and the examples, New to figscribe?
  has Try an example (scrolls to the gallery) and How it works (the README's
  Getting started) next to Describe it instead, and the date of a recent
  project is written in English whatever the system language.

• New figures have inward tick marks on all four sides, as many journals
  want, and the figure's settings are arranged by what they are for: Format
  (name, size, PNG resolution, style sheet), Text (font size, units in
  labels, panel letters), Ticks and frame with the two tick settings in view,
  their widths and lengths and the panel layout (folded). Saved projects keep
  their own ticks. A thin line now separates the sections of the property
  panel, as the design had always meant, and every section folds with a click
  on its title; the panel remembers it for each kind of object while you work. The
  section titles are larger (14 px, as large as the figure's name in the outline;
  the object's title 17 px), to be read at a glance.

• A panel's settings are arranged by what they are for: Title and axes
  (the title, then the cards of the axes, the right y axis with its card right
  after its box), Grid (the box with all its settings under it, no longer
  hidden under More), Legend, and the folded Place in layout. The legend's
  Columns is Columns of entries, and its Position is Position (dragged).

• The axis form has three sections: Label (with the label's size and
  distance), Scale (type, range, the linear zone of a symmetric log axis and
  the size of the numbers) and Ticks (major and minor, the row under the major
  ticks says Distance or Values). A section folded on an axis stays folded.

• The settings of a line, points or error bar plot are arranged by what they
  are for: Label and data (the legend entry is Legend entry), Units and
  rows (with Fewer points right under its box), Look (marker size and line
  width next to their marker and line), Error bars (the band under its box) and
  the folded Left-out points and More.

• A formula for a plot's units. x in and y in offer "a formula" next to
  "another factor": x / 60 - 273.15, (x - 32) / 1.8. It is written in x
  and numbers and must be linear and rise with x, so that error bars, axis,
  marks, ranges and fits follow as they do for a factor; the start (Start at
  0) is taken off first. The script shows the formula in Python's spacing. For
  the τ of an Allan deviation it may scale but not shift, e.g. cycles of 2.88 s
  in hours as x * 2.88 / 3600. Saved files are drawn as before.

• Fewer points drawn. A line, points or error bar plot can show the mean
  or median of every n rows, every n-th row, or the mean over intervals
  of x (Fewer points, under Data). The data file stays as it is; the
  figure, the export and the script show the reduced points and fits use
  them. An averaged point has its standard error as error bar (propagated
  when the plot has y errors); the median has none. Rows left out count as
  before and can be replaced by the mean of their neighbours. While a plot is
  reduced, leaving rows out and finding outliers are off. Saved files are
  drawn as before.

• Fixed: Save As into another folder no longer loses the data (every file was
  "missing" there). A data file outside the project's folder, or imported before
  the first save, is now stored relative to the project (../data/scan.csv),
  where it used to be stored by its whole path, so a project and its data can be
  moved or shared together; a file on another volume or drive keeps its whole path.

• Fixed: the script of a plot with fewer points drawn stopped with an error
  when its range of x kept no row; it now draws no point, as figscribe does.

• Saving cannot destroy the saved project. The project is written to a
  temporary file and put in place when that is complete, so a full disk or a
  lost share leaves the last saved version; that version also stays next to it
  as NAME.figscribe.bak. A project made read-only is still refused. Project
  files are written with the same line ends on every platform.

• Export remembers its format and folder. Export Figure… and Export All
  Figures… open in the folder last used with the format last chosen, and
  suggest the figure's name as the file name; a name typed without a suffix gets
  the chosen format's.

• Fixed: figscribe script showed a Python traceback when it could not write
  the script (a folder that is not there, a read-only one); it now says so
  in one line.

• Fixed: Add Panel and Duplicate on a panel of a grid whose column
  widths or row heights do not match its columns or rows (after the number
  of columns was changed while widths were set, say) stopped with an error;
  they now say what to put right.

• Fixed: the fit dialog no longer fails on data near the limits of floating
  point (about 1e-300 or 1e300), says in words when a fit stops because the
  model is not finite for values it tried, and says which uncertainties
  cannot be estimated when the data does not determine a parameter.

• Fixed: the residuals, and the count of points fitted, no longer include
  points whose y error is missing (NaN); the fit never used them.

• Fixed: with PySide6 before 6.12, running a command from a submenu in the
  command palette (Ctrl+K), such as Add Panel, did nothing and printed an
  error.

• Requirements: Matplotlib 3.10, NumPy 2.0, SciPy 1.13 and PySide6 6.7 at
  least. Older Matplotlib (3.8) did not run at all and older NumPy read some
  text files wrongly; the minimum versions are now installed and tested on
  every change.

• Axis labels are lined up across panels, by default and also in files
  saved before: in a column of panels the y labels stand on one line instead
  of following the width of their numbers (and x labels in a row).
  Saved figures with several panels therefore look a little different once
  opened. Line up axis labels in the figure's settings turns it off. Each
  axis has a Distance (pt) for its label.

• Residuals have a Line width (the joining line and the error bars) and
  the zero line is set apart: switch it off, or change its color, width and
  style. Saved files are drawn as before.

• A note can have a Background, white or any color, so it reads over a grid.
  Notes without one are drawn as before.

• Where am I: above the settings a path, such as Scan › Panel A › X axis,
  whose parts lead back to the figure or the panel with a click. The axes
  are rows in the outline, under their panel, and the axis chosen in the
  figure is the row selected there; a right-click offers the same range for
  all panels.

• Help > About figscribe shows the version of figscribe and of Python,
  Matplotlib and Qt, for bug reports. On macOS it stays under Help.

• The Insert menu has pictures all the way down. Add Plot As, Add
  Reference, Add Panel and Duplicate Figure have one now, and the menu lists
  its entries in the toolbar's order. In the toolbar Reference comes before
  Note, and the note's picture is a T.