# pltSig release notes

Version
### 12Jul24
| The toolbox has now been tested with Matlab version R2023b and one incompatibility with that version was fixed. Added @ZVAL to the list of string replacement tokens used with the Xstring/Ystring/Zstring parameters. Also added a version of the cursor get command that returns the z value of the active trace. These changes are described in the Cursor commands section. The changes above were used in the curves.m application so that for curves defined parametricaly, the independent variable (t) at the cursor location appears to the right of the X cursor readout. This was implemented using the Xstring parameter. Other improvements where made to the curves.m application as well, including adding a new curve (bringing the total to 43 curves), adding screen comments to many of the curves, making the figure window larger and other cosmetic improvements. Fixed a bug in the erip.m application that caused it not to run properly when it is installed in a folder path containing spaces (e.g. "MATLAB Add-Ons"). There were also other minor improvements and bug fixes to this application as well as impovements to the help file.
### 14Sep23
| Previously the erip was limited to linear phase FIR filter designs if the DSP System Toolbox was not installed. (erip uses functions in that toolbox when designing IIR filters or nonlinear phase FIR filters.) However, as of this version, erip can call an alternative c-based compiled Windows application allowing it to design IIR and nonlinear phase FIR filters without the DSP System Toolbox. This application (called iir.exe) is supplied as a base64 encoded text file since binary files are not allowed in the file exchange. For Windows systems, when erip is started for the first time the text file is automatically decoded to create the executable. Currently the iir.exe application is only available for Windows, so if you are using a Unix-based OS, you will still need the DSP System Toolbox for designing IIR filters. (Note: This doesn't diminish the value of The DSP System Toolbox since it contains many other useful tools and functions. Also, note that the DSP System Toolbox was introduced in R2011a. Before that, the functions used by erip for IIR filter design were in the Filter Design Toolbox.) In the erip.m application, left clicking on the fvtool button opens Matlab's fvtool utility allowing you to display items that are not shown in the other erip figures (step & impulse response, unwrapped phase, phase delay, and group delay). As of this release, you can now also right click on this button which displays those items using the easier-to-use plt plotting function. This is also useful since you may not have the fvtool program in your Matlab installation since it is part of the DSP System Toolbox. (In the case where you don't have fvtool available, left clicking the fvtool button has the same effect as the right click.) Added the utility function b64decode.m which decodes text files encoded using the standard base64 format. See details in the Auxiliary functions section. This function is used automatically by erip as mentioned above and also may be used to create MPP.exe from the included base64 encoded text file if you are interested in using the included Matlab Preprocessor. Added the utility function matplt.m which allows you to easily plot the variables contained in a .mat file. (Similar to the workspace plotter). See details in the Auxiliary functions section. Added a new pltSig.exe section to the help file. pltSig.exe is a compiled version of demoplt.m that allows non-Matlab users to run all the applications included in the pltSig toolbox. The pltSig.exe Windows application is not included in the pltSig toobox, but is available on my website here: pltSigEXE.zip (21 Mbytes). To run it, simply unzip the archive to a folder of your choosing and double click on pltSig.exe Added four string arguments (reset,full,width,height) to the figpos.m utility function. Read about the use of these new arguments in the Auxiliary functions section. Improved and dramtically simplified the utility function screencfg.m used by figpos.m to aid in figure window positioning. The screencfg helper function taskbarSZ.m is no longer needed and has been deleted. See details of the screencfg.m function in the Auxiliary functions section. Enhanced the image pseudo object by adding an option for direct scaling and also by providing the ability to add custom colormaps. The pltmap.m demo program used to create the image using cubic interpolation. That is still the default on startup, but now you may also select nearest neighbor interpolation or the image can be created using 2D convolution with a selectable kernel size and shape. Added a load button in the gpsLog.m application so you can load a new log file after the application has started. Fixed a bug in erip.m and editz.m that caused the phase to be calculated improperly. afilt.m was calculating the correct elliptical filter for even order filters but incorrectly for odd order filters. This bug has been fixed. Also the Save tag was added to the menu box to make it easier to save the results to a .mat file as well as a .txt file if desired. The documentation was improved to show how the results in the .mat file can be used. Fixed a recently introduced bug in plt('close') Since the plt.m function has been growing larger, to improve readability, it has been split into two parts (plt.m and cur.m). Fixed additional bugs related to Windows 11. Other minor bug fixes.
### 04Jul23
| Fixed an incompatibility with Windows 11. (Previously I had tested only up to Windows 10).
### 01Jul23
| The first official release of the pltSig toolbox.
### 04Apr23
| The pltSig toolbox evolved from the plt toolbox. If you would like to see the release notes from the plt toolbox, you can find them on my website here: Old release notes.