Summary: March 2008 release

Axiom is now available at github, a git-based code repository.
This site will have the Gold version of Axiom, that is, only
code that changes at each two-month release. To get a clone type:

   git-clone git://github.com/daly/axiom.git


USER VISIBLE CHANGES

  One primary focus of this release has been extending the Firefox
  toward being a full Axiom user interface (as opposed to a simple
  hyperdoc replacement). The Firefox console page has new, AJAX
  based, dropdown menus which are planned to be dynamically updated
  to display available functions for the last computed type. This 
  should make it much easier to find the applicable functions by
  category and type. They are currently static in this release.

* Firefox Pages

 o Dropdown menus were added to the Axiom console page
 o More hyperdoc pages were translated to Firefox/html
 o Bitmaps and graphics are now properly handled in pages
 o A minor mathml fix was applied (for invisible times)

* Refcard

 o An Axiom reference card of Axiom commands was created (src/doc/refcard)

* Examples

 o It is often difficult to figure the exact arguments required to call
   any given function in Axiom. The )display operation command used to
   only show the available modemaps. This command has now been changed.
    )display operation foo
   now shows examples of function calls for foo.

* Help

 o The plot routines have new help files and documentation

PORTING

 o Axiom was ported to MAC-OSX

 o The binary download page now has binaries for 
   Ubuntu, OpenSUsE, Redhat9, Redhat72, Debian, MACOSX at 
    <http://axiom.axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/download.html>

 o Binaries for the this release will be available shortly.


INTERNALS

* Compiler changes
 o  hashtables were used to speed up compiles

* Algebra changes
 o  There are new special functions, Ei,En,Ei1,Ei2,Ei3,Ei4,Ei5,Ei6
 o  The prime and BasicSieve functions are faster
 o  The Brent/Pollard algorithm was documented
 o  Bad gcd reductions are checked (heugcd regression test file added)
 o  The plot routines have new help files and documentation

* Makefile changes
 o  Bi-capital SVN copies are no longer made

* Interpreter changes
 o  Book Volume 5 has new documentation on the display function
 o  The display function code has been translated and moved to book volume 5
 o  PI has a higher internal precision
 o  Mappings are now properly hashed for Aldor

CATS (Computer Algebra Test Suite)

 o The differential equations regression tests are being checked against
   Mathematica, Maple, and Maxima. This has happended for the kamke2.input
   regression test file and will happen for the other regression tests.

o  Complex Gamma, logGamma, and log(Gamma) have additional tests and
   documentation.