Changes and additions

What's new in version 2.4

Version 2.4 introduces a different way of distributing EDA licences; along with the changes a number of license related tags have been added.

$$D and $$E substitution tags let you use first and second preferred documentation language in profiles for various setup purposes.

ERS$ tag to control error message behaviour in windows environments.

What's new in version 2.3

With the exception of the NRC$ and NXY$ tags (see below), no changes are needed to current profiles, unless of course you want to take advantage of the new features.
HTML related tags
EDA output may be produced as a HTML file; a number of tags deal with this issue, namely HLL= (include links), controlling output image fonts (HFC=, HFO=) and defining a local home page (HLH).
DLG$
Set the preferred data documentation language.
NRC$, NXY$
In version 2.3 colnames, rownames, xnames and ynames are up to 20 characters long; therefore - if you were using them - you will need to adapt the NRC$/NXY$ tags accordingly (see there).
DIP= directive now obsolete
The DIP=directive (directory prefix (path) for file names is obsolete and is ignored. The path name for the file names is now extracted from the DIR=directive. This change simplifies the specification and avoids trouble, i.e. the new solution forces the directory file and the files belonging to the directory to be stored in the same (external) directory.

If you have already set up an EDA version with profiles, no changes are needed, unless you would like to take advantage of the new features.

SCR$
Define Screen characteristics, including width and lenght, as well a print paper size.
SED$
Instead of using TED, the EDA text editor, you know can tell EDA to use a system editor instead.
HLM$
Set default modes for the various help modes. (Defaults for the SET HELP command).
$IF, $BASE
$IF lets you create a session profile conditionnally based on various contextual informations, like a date after or before some date, number of calls to EDA or file existence. These features are useful in a teaching context where e.g you want a different environment every day of your course.
SDX SDY SDZ
Default string initialization.
XLS/XSP/XSA/XSL/XSN/XJM
These directives specify the location (path names) for SPSS, SAS, S, JMP, SPAD.N and XLISP export files written by the *WRITE command.
SRF$ Session record file.
Used in conjunction with the $BASE command above. See there.
NPF$ Next profile file
Tell EDA what profile to processs after the first one.
Old style User access control dropped
Old style user lists specified in the main profile are no longer supported. If you did not adapt the old profiles, you will need to use the UAF$ directive (see there).

New in version 2.2

For most environments no changes are needed to current profiles, unless you want to take advantage of the new features or if the changed sequence of profile evaluation (system, group and user profiles) is crucial in your installation.

Profile file processing

The main feature of the new version is that profiles are no longer read in the sequence system-profile - group-profile - user-profile, but system (global) - user - group - system. This seems more realistic, for most situations (Some administrators asked for this change). The system profile will be processed as before. If you want a section of the system profile to be executed after all other profiles you will have to add the new EGL$ (End GLobals) profile entry.

Retrieving information

Macro programmers are now able to retrieve information from the session profile using new options of the SET command.

New tags in 2.2

No changes are needed to current profiles, unless you want to take advantage of the new features.
SPR= directive
The SPR= directive can be used to set up several printers.
EPF= directive
offers a way of quitting EDA and switch to a text editor.
PLT$ directive
is used to set defaults for plots.
PFE= PFP= directives
The print file epilogue/prologue directives now recognize different printer names and have additional possibilites to control the printing process.
ELD=
ELD= lets you define the $$L (EDALIB) symbol.
EPD=
EPD= lets you define the $$P symbol.
GRP=
Lets you define the $$G (group) symbol.
Control characters:
You may enter control character sequences on all profile lines, using the standard EDA convention, i.e. ~nnn or ~l, where nnn is a three digit decimal number and l a letter from A..Z.