v2.0.1

This is a major rework of Vizier, featuring a significant update to the Vizier frontend, as well as substantial behind-the-scenes infrastructure changes.

Full Details: https://github.com/VizierDB/vizier-scala/milestone/6

Installing

Prerequisites

• JDK 11 (later versions break Spark)
• Python3.9+

Manual

• Download the vizier release binary and add it to in your path

Updating

Note: This release WILL very likely break the 1.x vizier.db file format. To migrate to the 2.x format:

• Export your 1.x project using Vizier 1.x
  • Go to Export Project in the Project menu, OR
  • use the vizierdb export command
• Import your project with Vizier 2.x

There is a small chance that your project will work without issues. Make sure to back up your vizier.db directory. You will almost certainly need to re-execute the entire workflow.

Release Summary

User-Facing Features

• A completely redesigned, cleaner, snappier, faster interface
• The interface is now reactive. See cell output as it is generated, and get immediate feedback when a cell completes.
• Vizier is now based off of Spark 3.2 (#103)
• "infinite-scroll" style spreadsheets and data tables (#51 #8 #44)
• Fully-featured spreadsheets w/arbitrary cell references (#55)
• No longer a single-page app. That means, among other things, that browser-based navigation works correctly.
• Table of Contents is now faster and more prominent.
• Quick-access to artifacts and related actions (e.g., download, jump-to-cell, etc...)
• Significant performance improvements in the backend (#182 )
• Python cells now have a 'environment' option, allowing them to be run in non-system environments configured by vizier (#58 #164 #58)
• Python cells now try to infer the return type of an exported method for use with Spark from type annotations (#219 )
• Completely redesigned 'New Cell' UX, using icons to highlight prominent cell types. (#191 )
• Support for JDK 11 (#214 )
• Added a Documentation area (#278 )
• Data visualization tools are now quicker and easier to access; Standard plotting types are now directly accessible from the new cell picker, each with plot-specific interfaces. (#264 , #281, #233 ; thanks to @marysunc , @cameronjtoy, @naiyyirh )

Bug-Fixes

• Exported Python functions now work with SQL cells (#143)
• No more crashes when displaying doubles
• Python module warnings no longer include spurious blanks (#144)
• When downloading a dataset as CSV, convert Geometry objects to WKT strings (#138)

Developer-Facing Features

• All code now uses a single language (Scala), with a single source of truth about API formats
• Migrated to mill (#96). It's faster, and writing build scripts does not require learning a brand new DSL written over scala.
• Eliminated dependency on mimir-api (#85 #147). Bugs with lenses no longer need fiddly lock-step updates to multiple packages.
• Migrated the server backend to akka-http. This should break jetty dependency hell, and make integration with Vizier Server easier (#149 #216 )

Features Migrated from v1.2

• History Support (#152 #175)
• Code Snippets (#168 )
• Re-introduced read-only workflows (#175 )