The Mathematica 7 Release

Mathematica 7 was released today (okay, late last night). It has been under active development for 18 months. While not as gigantic in scope as Mathematica 6, it’s still a very solid, feature-filled upgrade.

The headlining features for version 7 are:

image processing

charting

parallel computing

A list of all major new features is available here. In addition to the highly publicized features, here is an incomplete list of other improvements I worked on for this release:

QuickLook plugin provides previews for notebook documents on Mac OS X 10.5

text & cell selections use system highlight color rather than XOR drawing

better sub-pixel accuracy of screen drawing & vector graphics export

BezierCurve support for EPS & PDF Export, and PDF Import

PDF export can attach arbitrary files (including the source notebook) to the exported PDF file

PDF import can read file attachments

PDF import of encrypted files works with default (empty) or user-supplied password

decreased EPS & PDF export file sizes in some cases

decreased notebook file sizes in some cases

ControllerState supports MIDI devices (e.g. keyboards, mixers, etc.) on Mac OS X

Additionally, the minimum Mac OS X version increased from 10.3 to 10.4.