Prism 8.1.0 Release Notes

Prism 8.1.0 was released on April 02, 2019.

Highlights

Don't have time to read the full list of release notes? We don't blame you: there's a LOT of new and improved stuff! Check out some of the highlights below or see the entire list of all updates for Prism version 8.1.0.

New Color Schemes

We've added 7 brand new built-in color schemes that you can access directly from the Change Colors button in the toolbar. Our new Colorblind Safe color scheme was designed to be interpretable by individuals with normal vision as well as those with a number of color vision deficiencies. Other new color schemes were inspired by great works of art or Prism itself! Read more about Prism color schemes

Automatic Annotation Text Color

In Prism 8.0.0, we added a new feature that allowed you to automatically add annotations to bar graphs. However, depending on the colors used in your graphs, these annotations wouldn't always be easy or even possible to read. Now in Prism 8.1.0 you can select to have the font color of your bar graph annotations be set automatically to ensure visibility based on the colors used in your graph!

Automatic Heatmap from Correlation Matrix Analysis

Prism 8.0.0 also introduced the new Multiple Variables data table, allowing for data entry in a "standard" format (in which each column contains values for a single variable, and each row represents one subject/individual and contains one set of values from each column). From this data structure, Prism 8.0.0 could compute a correlation matrix, calculating Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) for every pair of variables (columns). While Prism 8.0.0 would generate a table of these results, Prism 8.1.0 takes it one step further and will automatically create a heatmap of these results.

Complete Release Notes for Prism 8.1.0

New Features

• New (useful!) color schemes including a "Colorblind Safe" color scheme, appropriate for presentation and publication of data to a broad audience. The colors in this scheme were designed to be distinguishable by individuals with a variety of different color vision deficiencies. 
• New "auto" color for annotations and labels that switches between white and black depending on the background color.
• The correlation matrix analysis can now generate a heatmap of Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) values.
• Added an option to calculate profile likelihood CIs even when a fit is ambiguous in the 'Confidence' tab of the 'Parameters: Nonlinear Regression' dialog.
• "Dunnett T3" test can be used to compare the mean of each column with the mean of every other column after nonparametric one-way ANOVA. 
• (Mac) You (or your IT person) can now place the Prism Configuration File (prism-config.xml) into additional locations:
  • user library: ~/Library/Application Support/GraphPad/Prism/
  • all users library (for all users on a Mac): /Library/Application Support/GraphPad/Prism/
• (Mac) Enabled the script command ExportAllPDF that exports all the graphs (or layouts) into a single multipage file. This already worked for Windows in 8.0.
• (Mac) Enabled multiple selections (using Shift or Command key) of data sets in the 'Data Sets on Graph' tab of the 'Format graph' dialog for graphs from Grouped and Contingency graph families.

Feature Improvements

• Dunn's test now reports z ratio so you can compare with other programs or texts.
• Changed the automatic initial value for HillSlope to -1.0 for the variable slope inhibitory dose-response curve.
• Choose a default plot style for various kinds of graphs.
• Scatter plots now show a line at the median of the data set by default.
• Made the "Lines with text" drawing object more usable by adding more predefined choices for "texts".
• Parts of Whole graph titles now come from the column title rather than the data table name.
• Improved appearance of scatter plots.
• (Windows) Enabled the command in the contextual menu to apply a pattern fill to a grouped interleaved scatter graph with bars.
• Reports the direction of the mean of differences in 'Paired t test’ results sheet (either "A-B" or "B-A").

Performance (Speed) Improvements

• Drastically faster computation of the following analyses (by improving algorithms and by using multiple processor cores):
  • Nonlinear regression. Asymmetric (Profile Likelihood) confidence intervals are twice as fast
  • Repeated measures one-way ANOVA with equal number of values in each group ~20x faster
  • Kruskal-Wallis exact test twice as fast
  • Mixed-effects model used in repeated measures ANOVA and nested analyses ~10x faster
  • Binomial exact test ~100x faster
  • Poisson regression ~10x faster
  • Spearman correlation (computation of exact P values) nearly instant with only one pair of tied values (analysis speed proportional to the number of tied values)
• (Windows) Improved Prism's ability to open very large projects.
• (Windows) Improved performance of Prism file opening on Windows 7 under non-admin user account.
• (Mac) Sped up the opening of the 'Parameters: Multiple Linear Regression' dialog if the source data table contains a large number of data sets.

Fixed Analysis Bugs That Resulted in Incorrect Results

• Fixed how results were presented in "QQ plots" for Paired t test.
• (Mac) Correlation matrix table of P values showed one-tail P values even if two-tailed was chosen.

Other Analysis Bugs Fixed

• Fixed the issue in which "infinity %" was displayed instead of a blank cell in 'Fraction of Total' results sheet when reporting the percentage of a blank cell in the source data table (only when options to show 'All the above' and 'Percentage' were selected).
• Fixed the issue when the wrong row titles appeared in "Residuals plot" results tabs in the One-way ANOVA results sheet.
• Fixed the issue where the 'Fractions of total' results sheet appeared empty if the source data table contains only one value in one row.
• Added the error note "The data couldn't be transposed because there are too many rows. The number of columns generated would exceed the maximum number of columns Prism can handle (256).” This note now shows on a blank results sheet when attempting to transpose more than 256 rows of data.
• Updated Correlation Matrix analysis so that the diagonals in "P value" and "Confidence interval of r" results tabs are blank.
• Fixed the issue in which the "Number of values" cell in the "Descriptive Statistics" results sheet was blank instead of zero when analyzing a data set with no values.
• Fixed the issue where column titles were not updated in 'How big is the difference?' section in the 'Nested t test' results sheet after changing data sets in the source data table.
• Made Prism show the floating note "To perform this test you must select more than two columns of data" instead of "Out of memory" on the "Kruskal-Wallis" results sheet after deleting all data from the source data table.
• Fixed the format of 'Transform' results which was wrong when transforming both X and Y values and source data table had error values already calculated. 
• The asymmetric dose-response curve equations (5PL) now include the constraint S>0 to avoid ambiguous results.
• (Windows) Fixed crash that occurred when performing Normality and Lognormality test if the option to create a QQ plot was enabled and the results sheet title was too long.

Graphing Bug Fixes

• Fixed the issue in which the size of the label for an additional tick was reduced if a graph was previously resized to fill a page. 
• Fixed the issue in which the X-axis labels did not correctly move with the plots after changing the spacing between Violin plots. 
• Fixed the issue when a part of column labels disappeared on a Heatmap graph after transposing rows and columns and rotating labels to vertical.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue when axes with labels were unexpectedly duplicated.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue in which an area fill overlapped Y axis on an "Area fill" graph.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue in which graphs incorrectly overlapped each other on a layout sheet after changing the arrangement of the layout. 
• (Windows) Fixed the issue in which heat map graphs became invisible after setting the shape to "Wide”.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue in which three-way graphs would unexpectedly appear as separated grouped graphs after performing the 'Duplicate Current Sheet' command.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue in which annotations placed above the bars in 'Before-After' graphs were misplaced after rotating the graph to horizontal.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue in which text for a line/bracket with centered text was unexpectedly misplaced after moving the graph on a page.
• (Mac) Fixed the issue in which all data points on a scatter dot plot with bars were unexpectedly reformatted when you format a single data points from the data table.
• (Mac) Fixed the issue in which a legend inherited from column title unexpectedly reverted back to its original format after changes have been applied via 'Format Axes' dialog.
• (Mac) Fixed the issue in which the first “dot” was not uniformly colored and Nth part of dot appeared under the 10 x 10 grid after placing graph on the layout.
• (Mac) Fixed the issue in which single-line legends appeared as multi-lines.

Other Bug Fixes

• Fixed crash that occurred when you separated data with a line on a grouped bar graph with an empty source data.
• Fixed the issue when the 'Change Graph Type’ dialog was unexpectedly opened after creating a new graph of existing survival data with 95% CI error.
• Reversed the order of the colors in the 'Range' section in the 'Color mapping' tab of the 'Format Graph' dialog for the Heatmap graph.
• (Windows) Changed Prism so that when you paste a single row of data containing spaces from MS Excel to Prism's data table, each value is copied to a separate cell instead of a single cell.
• (Windows) Fixed crash on an attempt to switch to layout sheet in a template file created in Prism 7.
• (Windows) Fixed crash on importing large XML file if "All Files as Text' item was previously selected in 'Import' dialog.
• (Windows) Fixed crash when renaming multiple sheets from the family panel at the same time. 
• (Windows) Fixed crash on dragging an empty folder within the Navigator. 
• (Windows) Added autocorrection procedure for files corrupted by saving from the gallery mode which contained graphs with curves plotted on a layout. 
• (Windows) Fixed Prism so that it asks you to check your data as some rows of data were ignored because the X value was zero or negative while doing survival analyses.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue when the first subcolumn titles in the following data set were unexpectedly copied into the subcolumn titles of the preceding data set after increasing number of subcolumns on a data table.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue when data disappeared from the data table when you right-click it and it contained a range of data linked to a graph sheet.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue when Prism 8 would not open Prism 7 files that contain graphs on a layout linked to a different project.
• (Windows) Fixed the issue when asterisks appeared in the wrong position after moving multiple brackets by dragging one of them. 
• (Windows) Fixed the issue when asterisks of all brackets unexpectedly appeared at the wrong position after performing 'Duplicate Object' operation and dragging selected objects. 
• (Windows) Fixed the issue when brackets with an asterisk appeared at the wrong position after sending multiple-selected graphs/layouts to MS Office. 
• (Windows) Fixed the issue when it was impossible to enter a three digits number for data sets in the 'Data set' dropdown in 'Define Color Scheme' dialog.
• (Windows) Fixed the 'Learn' help button in 'Parameters: Fit Spline/LOWESS' dialog so that it opens the correct page.
• (Windows) Fixed a delay on closing the Welcome dialog while on the 'Clone a Graph' tab if a project with a large number of graphs was previously used.
• (Windows) Made Prism save Highlight Sheet action to undo/redo history list.
• (Mac) Fixed crash on attempting to duplicate a graph or place it onto layout which contained Wingdings characters, in files created in older versions of Prism.
• (Mac) Fixed the crash that occurred when you open a file containing a grouped bar graph plotting empty data sets, and bars on a graph are separated by a vertical line.
• (Mac) Fixed the issue when a graph name disappeared from the navigator if a name of the data sheet was the same as the name of the graph and contained 80 symbols in it (the max limit that Prism allows).
• (Mac) Fixed the issue when Prism could not open Prism file because of a problematic titles autocomplete list loaded from Prism preferences.
• (Mac) Fixed the issue when the 'Parameters: Nested One-way ANOVA' dialog appeared instead of 'Parameters: Nested t test' dialog after leaving only two data sets in the source data table.
• (Mac) Fixed the Magnification slider on the bottom toolbar which was unexpectedly hidden after reducing the width of the Prism window.
• (Mac) Fixed the issue when the new row with blank values was not added to the list in the 'Transform' tab in 'Parameters: Select and Transform' dialog after changing a value of any column in the last row.