Technical Message/developer oriented message.
As announced earlier the development time available is focused on moving towards the complete rewriting of common core modules and principles.
This is for most users only relevant in terms of long term maintenance and stability. But as such does not change principles of working or immediate design of the visual parts of the software - be it Analysis or Entry.
The new core modules will be implemented over the next year. First in EpiC, then in Analysis and finally in Entry. The latter combined with developing a focused data entry module accomplishing the regulations of good clinical practice guidelines and FDA part 11 compliance.
Also the translation principles will change since the conversion to the new core requires combination of the translated parts of Entry and Analysis. More news on translation will follow within the next month.
The core modules reads data from disk, saves data to disk and handles aspects such as conversion of dates, changes from integer to string variables etc.
Obviously thorough testing of this is very important. The real batch testing will be implemented as part of the EpiC conversion to the new core, but technical oriented users are encouraged to also test the new module in reading and writing data files. Currently reading and writing can be done on any file in format EpiData (rec+chk) and any Stata version from 4-10. Dbase, csv and possibly more formats follows.
The first release of a test application is now available for windows and linux from the testing page: http://www.epidata.dk/testing.php Please notice that it is purely a test application which should NOT be used for routine data. Work on copies of data.
Please discuss problems and success on the epidata list. Errors should be reported with attached example files (no sensitive data) to the new bug reporting system which will replace the Mantis system. The current address for the flyspray system is : http://www.epidata.info/flyspray/ but this might change.
regards Jens Lauritsen EpiData Association