{"id":2076,"date":"2016-11-07T06:12:23","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T11:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/?p=2076"},"modified":"2016-11-08T08:31:50","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T13:31:50","slug":"notes-on-the-release-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/2016\/11\/07\/notes-on-the-release-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes on the Release Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content\"><!--introduction--><p>Today&#8217;s guest blogger is Sowmini Sampath, from the Documentation group at MathWorks. Her team&#8217;s goal is to make it easier for you to learn how to use our products. Which means examples, examples, and more examples, right? But there&#8217;s other useful stuff too, if you need it. She is writing today about the Release Notes.<\/p><!--\/introduction--><h3>Contents<\/h3><div><ul><li><a href=\"#1b0f14d5-5742-4ccf-af6c-7acbe11af6e8\">Motivation<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#8ec67b58-ef20-4653-b87d-8aaca7983768\">Release Range<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#acaecb34-9d88-40cf-93fa-e657f1076b35\">Compatibility Considerations<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#67643b2e-0d76-4e7c-8d14-c5e19e1a947c\">Text Filter<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#985867bd-7f1d-434c-8f1c-9298c38b5775\">Sort or Filter by Category<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#6fa4e0d2-e86a-4003-8a50-9e25f68b72cf\">We Welcome Your Feedback!<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><h4>Motivation<a name=\"1b0f14d5-5742-4ccf-af6c-7acbe11af6e8\"><\/a><\/h4><p>MathWorks releases new versions of products twice a year, in March and September. You may upgrade with every release, or move to a new version less frequently. Either way, do you use the release notes to discover new capabilities and to look for changes to existing behavior? We&#8217;ve heard from many of you that prior to and during an upgrade, you want the ability to aggregate, scan, sort, and analyze release notes from a range of releases. We&#8217;ve made some improvements based on your feedback. The new features are now available in the online version of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/help\/matlab\/release-notes.html\">R2016b Release Notes<\/a>.<\/p><h4>Release Range<a name=\"8ec67b58-ef20-4653-b87d-8aaca7983768\"><\/a><\/h4><p>We&#8217;ve added the ability to specify range for release notes. You can now cut down on the noise from releases that don&#8217;t apply to your work, and focus on discovering features in the range that most interests you.<\/p><p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/images\/loren\/2016\/rn_releaserange.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p><h4>Compatibility Considerations<a name=\"acaecb34-9d88-40cf-93fa-e657f1076b35\"><\/a><\/h4><p>We&#8217;ve also added functionality on the left-hand side of the page to help you quickly aggregate information about incompatibility across releases. This is one way to estimate the potential impact of an upgrade on your existing code.<\/p><p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/images\/loren\/2016\/rn_incompatibilities.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p><h4>Text Filter<a name=\"67643b2e-0d76-4e7c-8d14-c5e19e1a947c\"><\/a><\/h4><p>We group release notes by release and collapse the sections to help with quick scanning. We heard that you want the ability to find all release notes that contain a keyword such as a function name. But previously, searching for keywords in release notes missed information in collapsed sections. You can now use the text filter to find all release notes that contain a keyword or phrase, including those within collapsed sections.<\/p><p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/images\/loren\/2016\/rn_text_filter.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p><h4>Sort or Filter by Category<a name=\"985867bd-7f1d-434c-8f1c-9298c38b5775\"><\/a><\/h4><p>We&#8217;ve also added a way to sort notes by category, ...<\/p><p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/images\/loren\/2016\/rn_sortby.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p><p>... and a way to narrow your results to a selected category across releases of interest to you.<\/p><p><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"5\" hspace=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/images\/loren\/2016\/rn_catfilter.png\" alt=\"\"> <\/p><h4>We Welcome Your Feedback!<a name=\"6fa4e0d2-e86a-4003-8a50-9e25f68b72cf\"><\/a><\/h4><p>Does the new design make finding information a little easier for you? Let us know if you have more suggestions for the release notes or any other part of the overall documentation. Please leave your comments <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/?p=2076#respond\">here<\/a>.<\/p><script language=\"JavaScript\"> <!-- \r\n    function grabCode_e94a442337644025a18ae6385d4f1557() {\r\n        \/\/ Remember the title so we can use it in the new page\r\n        title = document.title;\r\n\r\n        \/\/ Break up these strings so that their presence\r\n        \/\/ in the Javascript doesn't mess up the search for\r\n        \/\/ the MATLAB code.\r\n        t1='e94a442337644025a18ae6385d4f1557 ' + '##### ' + 'SOURCE BEGIN' + ' #####';\r\n        t2='##### ' + 'SOURCE END' + ' #####' + ' e94a442337644025a18ae6385d4f1557';\r\n    \r\n        b=document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0];\r\n        i1=b.innerHTML.indexOf(t1)+t1.length;\r\n        i2=b.innerHTML.indexOf(t2);\r\n \r\n        code_string = b.innerHTML.substring(i1, i2);\r\n        code_string = code_string.replace(\/REPLACE_WITH_DASH_DASH\/g,'--');\r\n\r\n        \/\/ Use \/x3C\/g instead of the less-than character to avoid errors \r\n        \/\/ in the XML parser.\r\n        \/\/ Use '\\x26#60;' instead of '<' so that the XML parser\r\n        \/\/ doesn't go ahead and substitute the less-than character. \r\n        code_string = code_string.replace(\/\\x3C\/g, '\\x26#60;');\r\n\r\n        copyright = 'Copyright 2016 The MathWorks, Inc.';\r\n\r\n        w = window.open();\r\n        d = w.document;\r\n        d.write('<pre>\\n');\r\n        d.write(code_string);\r\n\r\n        \/\/ Add copyright line at the bottom if specified.\r\n        if (copyright.length > 0) {\r\n            d.writeln('');\r\n            d.writeln('%%');\r\n            if (copyright.length > 0) {\r\n                d.writeln('% _' + copyright + '_');\r\n            }\r\n        }\r\n\r\n        d.write('<\/pre>\\n');\r\n\r\n        d.title = title + ' (MATLAB code)';\r\n        d.close();\r\n    }   \r\n     --> <\/script><p style=\"text-align: right; font-size: xx-small; font-weight:lighter;   font-style: italic; color: gray\"><br><a href=\"javascript:grabCode_e94a442337644025a18ae6385d4f1557()\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small;        font-style: italic;\">Get \r\n      the MATLAB code <noscript>(requires JavaScript)<\/noscript><\/span><\/a><br><br>\r\n      Published with MATLAB&reg; R2016b<br><\/p><\/div><!--\r\ne94a442337644025a18ae6385d4f1557 ##### SOURCE BEGIN #####\r\n%% Notes on the Release Notes\r\n% Today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s guest blogger is Sowmini Sampath, from the Documentation group at\r\n% MathWorks. Her team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goal is to make it easier for you to learn how to\r\n% use our products. Which means examples, examples, and more examples,\r\n% right? But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s other useful stuff too, if you need it. She is writing\r\n% today about the Release Notes.\r\n%\r\n%% Motivation\r\n% MathWorks releases new versions of products twice a year, in March and\r\n% September. You may upgrade with every release, or move to a new version\r\n% less frequently. Either way, do you use the release notes to discover new\r\n% capabilities and to look for changes to existing behavior? We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard\r\n% from many of you that prior to and during an upgrade, you want the\r\n% ability to aggregate, scan, sort, and analyze release notes from a range\r\n% of releases. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made some improvements based on your feedback. The new\r\n% features are now available in the online version of the\r\n% <https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/help\/matlab\/release-notes.html R2016b Release\r\n% Notes>.\r\n%%\r\n%% Release Range\r\n% We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve added the ability to specify range for release notes. You can now\r\n% cut down on the noise from releases that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t apply to your work, and\r\n% focus on discovering features in the range that most interests you.\r\n%%\r\n% <<rn_releaserange.png>>\r\n\r\n%% Compatibility Considerations\r\n% We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also added functionality on the left-hand side of the page to help\r\n% you quickly aggregate information about incompatibility across releases.\r\n% This is one way to estimate the potential impact of an upgrade on your\r\n% existing code.\r\n%%\r\n% \r\n% <<rn_incompatibilities.png>>\r\n% \r\n\r\n%% Text Filter\r\n% We group release notes by release and collapse the sections to help with\r\n% quick scanning. We heard that you want the ability to find all release\r\n% notes that contain a keyword such as a function name. But previously,\r\n% searching for keywords in release notes missed information in collapsed\r\n% sections. You can now use the text filter to find all release notes that\r\n% contain a keyword or phrase, including those within collapsed sections.\r\n\r\n%%\r\n% \r\n% <<rn_text_filter.png>>\r\n% \r\n\r\n%% Sort or Filter by Category \r\n% We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also added a way to sort notes by category, ...\r\n\r\n%%\r\n% \r\n% <<rn_sortby.png>>\r\n% \r\n% \r\n%%   \r\n% ... and a way to narrow your results to a selected\r\n% category across releases of interest to you.\r\n%\r\n% <<rn_catfilter.png>>\r\n%\r\n%\r\n%% We Welcome Your Feedback!\r\n% Does the new design make finding information a little easier for you? Let\r\n% us know if you have more suggestions for the release notes or any other\r\n% part of the overall documentation. Please leave your comments\r\n% <https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/?p=2076#respond here>.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n##### SOURCE END ##### e94a442337644025a18ae6385d4f1557\r\n-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"overview-image\"><img decoding=\"async\"  class=\"img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/images\/loren\/2016\/rn_releaserange.png\" onError=\"this.style.display ='none';\" \/><\/div><!--introduction--><p>Today&#8217;s guest blogger is Sowmini Sampath, from the Documentation group at MathWorks. Her team&#8217;s goal is to make it easier for you to learn how to use our products. Which means examples, examples, and more examples, right? But there&#8217;s other useful stuff too, if you need it. She is writing today about the Release Notes.... <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/2016\/11\/07\/notes-on-the-release-notes\/\">read more >><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2076"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2079,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions\/2079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}