News
November 24, 2009: Version 2.9.8 released.
A maintenance release, except for MacOS:
Fixes all uncovered issues with 2.9.6, including font issues on Fedora 11;
A new limit flag (-en k) has been added to the tina tool: "tina -en k"
stops as soon as the number of enabled transitions in the net drops below k.
Hence "tina -en 1" checks absence of deadlocks on the fly;
The MacOS version of the nd editor underwent a major revision, improving
its "look and feel" (e.g. it uses apple's menubar) and fixing all known issues
on that target.
June 10, 2009: Version 2.9.6 released.
2.9.6 is a maintenance release. All known issues with 2.9.4 have
been fixed; some algorithmics improvements have been introduced.
November 17, 2008: Version 2.9.4 released.
Version 2.9.4 is mostly a maintenance release. The most visible change is
the addition of a 5 lines digest printed by tina on standard output (or in a file)
upon completion of the analysis.
The digest summarizes its results (whatever the actual output format), it notably
prints the status of the boundedness, liveness and reversibility properties.
In nd, the digest is shown in the tina result window, for all output formats.
Read arcs and inhibitor arc are now
supported by all constructions (where meaningfull). Liveness analysis
is faster for large graphs, and takes less memory. Many small
improvements have been implemented, with a notable speedup for modes -P, -M, -E.
Minor changes to tina commandline: added flags -stats, -d, removed
flag -x, added digestfile argument.
May 2, 2008: Version 2.9.2 released.
Version 2.9.2 is functionally equivalent to 2.9.0, but brings an improved memory management.
The new memory management significantly improves the speed of all tina constructions,
specially those not handling time constraints.
February 29, 2008: Version 2.9.0 released.
Version 2.9.0 is a major release. Among many improvements it introduces static priorities, as
explained in [15] and [16]: A transition is firable at some instant if no transition
with higher priority is firable at the same instant.
In absence of priorities, and besides minor ergonomic differences, 2.9.0 behaves exactly like 2.8.4
and is fully upward-compatible.
- Priorities may be specified graphically by drawing arcs between transitions (the source has higher priority
than the destination), or textually with "pr" declarations (check doc/formats/net.txt for details).
The priority relation is the transitive closure of the specified relation, it must be irreflexive.
The priority relation is checked when saving/loading/simulating/analyzing nets or explicitly by tools->check net.
All tools support priorities.
The tina constructions taking advantage of priorities are the reachability graph (mode -R) in absence of
time constraints, and the strong state class graph (or zone graph, mode -S) if time constraints are present.
The other constructions forget priorities (a proper warning is printed).
The construction selected by default is assured to handle all features present in the net.
- Besides priorities, the nd editor and other tools have been improved in an number of ways
favoring robustness, ease of use and performances. All tools have been intensively tested over the last months.
January 9, 2008: Version 2.8.6 beta released.
Besides the new targets, 2.8.6 is mostly a maintenance release. The visible changes from 2.8.4 include:
- New targets: i86pc (for PCs under Solaris x86), intel-pc (a native version for macintels), and x86_64-linux (for 64 bit linuxes);
- nd: The control menubar has been moved to a more standard place, making edition easier in fullscreen mode
or on targets not supporting "focus-follows-mouse" (MacOS). The old
behavior can be selected on the setup panel, if desired;
- nd: The naming discipline for pasted nodes has been changed: suffixed names are replaced
by generated names of form tn or pn. Again, the old behavior can be selected on the
setup panel, if desired;
November 17, 2006: Version 2.8.4 released.
Besides bug fixes and many small improvements, the changes from 2.8.0 to 2.8.4
essentially concern the tina tool:
- tina now provides Popova's "essential states" method (tina -D/-F/-F1);
- A variant of the coverability tree construction (-Cm n) allows one to set a
marking threshold for unbounded places (see the man pages for details);
- Constructions -S, -A and -U have been improved for nets with unbounded firing intervals:
instead of the "clock domain relaxation" of [5], these constructions now
use the simpler "normalization" operation proposed by Hadjidj/Boucheneb;
- The ktz binary format for transition systems has been improved;
March 31, 2006: Version 2.8.0 released.
2.8.0 is a major overhaul of the toolbox. The internals have been
restructured to accomodate new forthcoming features, and three new tools are available.
Externally, the main visible changes are:
More and enriched input formats:
- PNML support: all tools accept nets described in PNML (BasicPNML and
a timed extension). The nd editor may import from, and export to, PNML,
the tools (tina, struct, plan, ndrio) accept PNML files;
- TPN scripts: a new net description format (.tpn) extending both .net and .ndr allows
one to build complex nets by composition, using place and/or transition labels;
- All net description formats now support generalized inhibitor and read (test) arcs;
Three new tools:
- selt: a State/Event LTL model checker operating on kripke transition systems represented in .ktz format;
- plan (preliminary): a path analysis tool. Plan computes all, or a single, firing schedules
over some transition sequence; more capabilities to come;
- ndrio: converts nets between several formats (.net, .ndr, .tpn and .pnml, at the time);
Also:
- New tina flags -ls and -lt allow to print transition systems labelled using place or transition
labels rather than names;
- The MacOSX distribution has been improved and is now self-contained;
- Performances and robustness have been improved throughout;
Check the man pages in doc/man, and the documents in doc/txt and doc/formats for all new features.
May 2, 2005: Version 2.7.4 released.
2.7.4 mainly improves the nd editor and stepper simulator. Also, installation on Windows is simpler. The changes are:
- [nd] Now provides selection, with standard bindings and Cut/Copy/Paste/Move facilities for node groups.
- [nd] Several nets can be merged into the graphic buffer (File->include->...).
- [nd] Nodes in the graphic buffer can be fused (superpose them, then use Button 3);
- [nd] Generic facilities allows one to invoke his/her own applications from the tools menu, provided they operate on files in the formats recognized by nd, check (Tools->how to ...) for details.
Available plugins for nd using these features will be advertized in the new Friends page, if desired.
- [nd] The stepper simulator has been much improved, in look, behavior, and functions for replaying scenarios
- [tools] On windows, the cygwin library is no more needed, just download and run.
- [tools]: A new flag (-wp) controls generation of temporal divergence information in lts outputs (check the man pages for details). The ktz format captures that information.
December 20, 2004: Version 2.7.2 released.
For Linux/Windows/Solaris, 2.7.2 is essentially a bug fixes and clean up release. The real novelty is
availability of a version for MacOS X. The changes are:
- [nd+tools] Now available for MacIntoshes under MacOS X. The MacOS X release comes with two versions of
the editor, one runs under X11, and the other runs under the native Aqua graphic system.
Check file INSTALL in the distribution for details.
- [nd] Now runs with the latest, and much faster, Tcl/Tk version. To ease installation, the editor is now deployed as a standalone application only. Problems with management of temporary files have been solved.
October 1, 2004: Version 2.7.0 is now available.
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