Dear all

A new test release has been placed on www.epidata.dk/testing.php

The changes will be released as public version after implementation of a few more changes and tests.

Users are invited to test the following new features and improvements: - but remember as always to work on test data and copies of projects.

Major new feature in Analysis:      Dialogs for statistics      A visual form which will create the command      - like in Analysis ClassicSpeed of reading projects has been improved

EntryClient, Manager and Analysis work in Mac (64 bit - latest OS)

A number of bug-fixes and internal clarifications to manage definitions of missing data and tables have been implemented. Most of this is important improvements, but should not be visible to the user, apart from reading of files being much faster.

One of the difficulties is to ensure correct implementation of procedures for encryption, user control of entry (logging) and the way the operating systems control access to the encryption libraries. Increasingly in many organizations user have only restricted access to their own computer making it difficult to write software - without paying licenses to e.g. Microsoft and Apple.

The test versions are provided as zip/tgz compressed files. Make sure that you unzip all content with maintained folder/directory structure

Please comment on the list if you have problems/suggestions or experiences with the updated versions.

One note is that after unzipping and opening you should resize the dialogs in Analysis if you have a Mac computer. Otherwise some of the content is not sufficiently intuitive to use (we are working on that).

As always the changes were made in a collaborative effort of Torsten B.Christiansen, Jamie Hockin , Hans Rieder and I. Torsten does the main software desing and programming and Jamie added important aspects of Mac function and dialog implementation.

best wishes

Jens Lauritsen EpiData Association Denmark