PortableApps.com Platform and Suite 1.6 have been released.

[Outdated] FreeMat Portable 3.6 Development Test 5

Submitted by Bart.S on October 8, 2008 - 7:28am

New thread could be found here.

Here it is and therefore a little Contest:
If YOU are the first one who finds 3 bugs and reports them, you will win 3 free downloads at PortableApps.com. So hurry, don't waste time Sticking out tongue
The judges' decision is final.

Application: Freemat
Category: Education (& Science)
Description: FreeMat Portable is a free portable environment for rapid engineering and scientific prototyping and data processing. It is similar to commercial systems such as MATLAB from Mathworks, and IDL from Research Systems, but is Open Source. FreeMat provides visualization, image manipulation, and plotting as well as parallel programming. (from the website)
Features: (from the FreeMat FAQ)

  • N-dimensional array manipulation (by default, N is limited to 6)
  • Support for 8,16, 32, and 64 bit integer types (signed and unsigned), 32 and 64 bit floating point types, and 64 and 128 bit complex types.
  • Built in arithmetic for manipulation of all supported data types.
  • Support for solving linear systems of equations via the divide operators.
  • Eigenvalue and singular value decompositions
  • Full control structure support (including, for, while, break, continue, etc.)
  • 2D plotting and image display
  • Heterogeneous array types (called “cell arrays” in MATLAB-speak) fully supported
  • Full support for dynamic structure arrays
  • Arbitrary-size FFT support
  • Pass-by-reference support (an IDL feature)
  • Keyword support (an IDL feature)
  • Codeless interface to external C/C++/FORTRAN code
  • Native sparse matrix support
  • Function pointers (eval and feval are fully supported)
  • Classes, operator overloading
  • 3D Plotting and visualization via OpenGL
  • Handle-based graphics

License: GPL 2, or later
Language: English

Download FreeMat Portable 3.6 Development Test 5 [8MB download / 20.7MB installed]
(MD5: f5950fbfa0ce6b3d769b156655ee4754)

Additional Links:

Known Issues:

  • If you use ConvertAll Portable and/or MuseScore Portable and FreeMat Portable at the same time and don't close them in reversed order, registry keys will be left behind and/or the original (local) keys will be overwritten.

Release Notes:

Development Test 5 (2008-11-09):

  • Added INI-Option: AllowMultipleInstances
  • Improved the launcher, FreeMatPortable.ini and Readme.txt

Development Test 4 (2008-11-02):

  • Removed "Paths in History"-Adjustment (messed history in some cases)
  • Improved the launcher

Development Test 3 (2008-10-26):

  • Added "Paths in History"-Adjustment
  • Improved the launcher
  • Improved help.html

Development Test 2 (2008-10-12):

  • Compressed the EXE-file with the PortableApps.com App Compactor (saved ~6MB)
  • Deleted QtSvg4..dll
  • Fixed "No local install" bugs
  • Improved the launcher

Development Test 1 (2008-10-07): Initial release

  • Didn't compress the files with the PortableApps.com App Compactor (this would save ~16MB)
  • Removed the PDF-Manual, because it was corrupted (.html and .txt help are still included)

Acknowledgments:

  • Thanks to Patrick Patience for hosting
  • Thanks to OliverK for his guerilla field guide
  • Thanks to all devs for pieces of code Eye-wink
  • Thanks in advance to all testers.

Enjoy!


( categories: )

Released

FreeMat has now been released (Note: This is Bart.S' post, I just uploaded the file Sticking out tongue)

Get it while it's hot!

Cheater :P

Patrick, you want to win the contest, without giving other people a chance?
Or was my email recognized as spam? Billions of people wait for the next release!

Btw.: I just googled "FreeMat Portable" and this page is the first hit Smiling Yippie!

Sorry, found the first bug.

One point for me Eye-wink

If you haven't a local Freemat install, the reg keys won't be saved to \Data\settings\FreeMatPortable.reg . Sad
Fix: Move line 256 in FreematPortable.nsi above line 253 and recompile the launcher.
I'm so sorry, but I'll upload a new Dev Test next week. Maybe you can answer even though a few of my questions in the main post. Then I could compress the package.

I found this bug now, because I had a local install till today.

Better Fix

deleted, because it's no longer current

Workaround

deleted, because it's no longer current

Hi I work in a museum and

Hi I work in a museum and integrated in our setup is a science centre where as you can guess theres scientists doing research. I know I've heard grumbles about how they need better software for analysing their data. I think thats what this app doe (Please correct if wrong). Once this app is further along I'll introduce it to them which should give you a pretty good testing base. Hope this helps.

Live to learn. Learn to live. - JWSII

Thanks,

Oh, and I think many people can use FreeMat. Even students can use it for example in vector analysis, algebra of matrices ...
You can use it as a simple calculator too, but Speedcrunch Portable is easier to use for simple tasks.

New file is up!

Thanks Patrick!
Please test! See main post for details.

Still no feedback :-(

You want to learn more about Freemat? I found a tutorial: "The FreeMat Primer". You could get it from the
FreeMat Sourceforge Project Page

Suggestion

Hi Bart

This app seems like it has a very specific target group. Can I suggest maybe posting about it on forums popular with uni students or that who are likely to be studying subjects that make this app handy for them.

Live to learn. Learn to live. - JWSII

Good suggestion!

Well, but most of them don't know the PAF-Stuff and whether registry keys or folders are left behind.
This things could only be checked by the PortableApps.com Community (or Beta Testing Team), in my opinion.
I'll try to find more testers though.

Dev Test 3

has been released!

Graphics

In case FreeMat Portable would become a Pre-Release, here are links for the splash designers:
Icon (128x128 pixels), Logo (375x111 pixels)
Well, I'm aware of the fact that FreeMat is a "Low-Priority Application". I just don't want to forget where I've found the graphics.

The icon looks good though

The icon looks good though dont now how well the app works as I dont know how to use it. Will post a regshot soon.

Live to learn. Learn to live. - JWSII

How to use it,

hmmm, the easiest way to learn is reading the Tutorial mentioned above.
Anyway, you could test easy calculations, like:

a=5;
b=7;
a*b/2

If you click "Workspace", you'll see all used variables (e.g. a,b).
Below is an example for a tubeplot (from the manual). Just copy and paste it to the commandline.

t=0:(2*pi/100):(2*pi);
x=cos(t*2).*(2+sin(t*3)*.3);
y=sin(t*2).*(2+sin(t*3)*.3);
z=cos(t*3)*.3;
tubeplot(x,y,z,0.14*sin(t*5)+.29,t,10);

Thanks for your testing!

Regshot

Regshot 1.8.2
Comments:
Datetime:2008/10/29 10:25:55  ,  2008/10/29 10:27:07
Computer:TOWER_7200 , TOWER_7200
Username: , 

----------------------------------
Values added:2
----------------------------------
HKU\S-1-5-21-796845957-789336058-839522115-500\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache\F:\PortableApps\FreeMatPortable\FreeMatPortable.exe: "FreeMat Portable"
HKU\S-1-5-21-796845957-789336058-839522115-500\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache\F:\PortableApps\FreeMatPortable\App\FreeMat\Contents\bin\FreeMat.exe: "FreeMat"

----------------------------------
Values modified:4
----------------------------------
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed: AC B3 CA F1 14 5F B8 FB A9 51 CA 12 9F FE E1 F3 DA 4C E6 DE 0F 40 80 AA D4 E0 EC 21 25 FE 2E A2 68 7B B2 2D 26 0E E6 61 9E EA 4C 56 74 5D AB 13 6B 18 2A 8C 8E 11 DB 23 87 A0 D2 6B 1B DA 19 04 C3 A1 77 50 77 0E 2E 76 8C EA FC FE F8 36 90 EA
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed: 18 29 14 07 CE 98 B9 8C CB 50 86 1C 7F C0 21 1A E5 E0 87 6F A3 03 70 2B 0E EE 95 B6 E8 8A A2 34 7C D7 B7 76 C7 48 FD DC 91 63 1A D4 2E E7 5D 9B 2D D8 6B 04 BD F6 8E C1 1C 98 CA FD C4 C3 B7 50 83 A8 B2 C8 BE EE E4 14 54 2C B2 E4 27 59 9A 7A
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\MostRecentApplication\ID: 0x4601EAE8
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\MostRecentApplication\ID: 0x47DE02BC
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\MostRecentApplication\Name: "Photoshop.exe"
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\MostRecentApplication\Name: "FreeMat.exe"
HKU\S-1-5-21-796845957-789336058-839522115-500\SessionInformation\ProgramCount: 0x00000003
HKU\S-1-5-21-796845957-789336058-839522115-500\SessionInformation\ProgramCount: 0x00000001

----------------------------------
Files added:2
----------------------------------
C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\FREEMAT.EXE-33A431E3.pf
C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\FREEMATPORTABLE.EXE-0E88B189.pf

----------------------------------
Files [attributes?] modified:2
----------------------------------
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\ntuser.dat.LOG
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\software.LOG

----------------------------------
Total changes:10
----------------------------------

Live to learn. Learn to live. - JWSII

Looks clean to me :-)

What OS are you using?

XP SP3 The Photoshop entry is

XP SP3

The Photoshop entry is not do with Freemat. Thats as I had a version of it running before Freemat I think.

Live to learn. Learn to live. - JWSII

looks clean to me

looks clean to me

The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705

Dev Test 4

has been released Smiling
Thanks Patrick, that was really fast!

Great App

I was using a >60MB home made GNU Octave portable.
I am now using Freemat (which I had never tried before).
No problem until now.

Arnaud

Thanks for testing,

what OS are you using?

Oh, and welcome at PortableApps.com Smiling

The OSs I use

I maily use XP SP3 but I have done some very light use in SP2 and Vista SP1.
No problem at the moment

Hi Bart S. Just dropping by

Hi Bart S.

Just dropping by to see how things are going. What sort of downloads have you been getting? When this reaches pre-release I'll take it over to the science centre and see how it is received : )

Live to learn. Learn to live. - JWSII

Hi horusofoz,

things are going well Smiling I can't say the number of downloads (it's Patrick's server). And as mentioned above, I think FreeMat isn't very popular (here at PortableApps.com) and therefore a "Low-Priority Application".
So I guess the Pre-Release won't be released soon, even if I think it's ready. It's up to John and his release team.

Hey Bart.S

Can you tell me some specific functions/uses for FreeMat Portable? Now that I work at UniSA should be easier to introduce your software to students within the relevant disciplines. Previously I found the scientists at the museum where I was working to be reluctant to try the new software. However students being generally younger I would think they would be more open to trying out new things. Additionally, students generally being low income earners one can see them being more receptive to the idea of FOSS Eye-wink

Live to learn. Learn to live. - JWSII

Look up tutorials for Matlab,

Look up tutorials for Matlab, it uses generally the same language as far as I know.

Thanks for the response scriptdaemon :-)

However a simple bulleted list of what FreeMat Portable can do would be much more helpful. That way I can present it in a manner self explanatory as I wont be able to answer any questions other than about portability and OSS.

Thanks Smiling

Live to learn. Learn to live. - JWSII

There's a decent list on this

There's a decent list on this page: http://freemat.sourceforge.net/faq.html

Thanks :-)

Thanks Smiling

Live to learn. Learn to live. - JWSII

Main post

Hi horusofoz, I've added the features list to the main post. And I've added a link to the FreeMat Primer. Hope that helps!

Beta of FreeMat 4

Has anyone tested the Beta of FreeMat 4 yet? Is it worth testing (or maybe packaging as a portable app)? Or has it some known (showstopper) bugs?

It is usable enough for you

It is usable enough for you to start checking how it can be packaged as portable. But I have had problems that I can't always repeat with plotting therefore I would not release a portable version here yet.

Arnaud

Thanks,

took a quick look. No big changes on how it can be packaged as portable. Well, some of the regkeys changed and the directory structure is a little different.
No big deal, but it's really a beta (tests fail), so I won't release a portable version.
I'm waiting for the final 4.0 release Smiling

Bart.S

Freemat 4 is here

Looking forward to a portable version

Thanks

Me too Smiling

Nvm.

Nevermind, just checked the Sourceforge page.

Info

Website hasn't been updated yet, but FreeMat 4 has been announced here.