[esp-r] Availability of ESP-r Version 11.3 for Linux/Mac/Cygwin/Native Windows

Jon Hand (clcv10) jon at esru.strath.ac.uk
Wed Apr 25 17:28:47 BST 2007 

ESP-r version 11.3 binaries are now available

Following last weeks notice of a new public distribution of ESP-r,
the Energy Systems Research Unit in Glasgow have created
single click installers for Linux, Mac OSX, Cygwin emulation
on Windows machines as well as a Native windows version.

The new installers can be found on the download page
of http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk  along with instructions.

For best results, use a web browser other than Windows Explorer.
The installers are 40-70MB depending on the computing platform.

ESP-r is distributed under terms of the GNU GPL license so you can
use if for any purpose allowed under that license.  As per that license
the source code of ESP-r can also be downloaded (instructions
at the end of this email).

Release Notes
11.3 (April 2007)
=================

Generic Code Update
-------------------
- Numerous changes have been made to accommodate native Windows
   file naming conventions (spaces, back slashes).  This improves
   the functionality of ESP-r under native Windows.
- Numerous changes have been made to improve the functionality of
   the GTK version of the project manager and climate analyzer.

Simulator
---------
- Support has been added for the CEN 13791 solar distribution rules.
   With this ESP-r passes on all CEN 13791 test cases.
- Two mass flow components have been added: a regulated window vent
   and a roof mounted ventilation cowl.
- Numerous changes have been made to the implementation of the Alberta
   Air Infiltration model (AIM-2).
- Two idealized HVAC models (GSHP and DHW) and the BASESIMP ground heat
   transfer model can now use a new method to calculate ground  
temperatures.
   Three plant components of water storage tanks also make use of  
this new model.
- A bug in the treatment of type 5 casual gains was repaired.

Project Manager
---------------
- A 'cancel' button has been added in ~135 locations to improve
   program navigation.
- The menu structure for (most) zone control law editing
   has been revised to facilitate the description of controls.
   Documentation has also been improved and new exemplars have been
   created to demonstrate the use of about a dozen zone control laws.
- A facility has been added to allow the importation of typical
   operations, air flow, and casual gain profiles.
- Labels related to flow component 40 have been updated to remove
   the words 'volume flow' because it is actually an opening type.
- The QA report could be confused by old control files and this has
   been repaired.
- Support has been added for 'silently' inserting openings in surfaces.
- Support has been added for the reading of a zip geometry format file
   (as produced by the Xzip program).
- The functionality of the events profile database manager has been
   incorporated into the project manager to eliminate the need for this
   separate utility.
- Some alterations have been made to the structure of the database menus
   to improve program navigation.
- An option has been added to allow the export of version 1.2, 1.3, 1.4,
   and (some aspects of) 2.0 EnergyPlus IDF files.
- The format of the IPV report has been updated.  A control has been
   added to allow the user to toggle between IPV report formats.
- The user input dialogue for the 'constant' boundary condition has been
   altered to allow the user to input a high temperature boundary
   condition (e.g. 500C).

Results Analyzer
----------------
- An error in the reporting of surface absorbed solar radiation
   was corrected.

Quality Control Utility
-----------------------
- A number of new test cases have been added to the regression tester.
- New functionality has been added to the regression tester to
   facilitate diagnosing errors.

Climate Data
------------
- The documentation on solar radiation data has been improved in the
   ASCII data exported from the climate analyser.

Additional Changes
------------------
- Many additional changes have been made that are transparent to the
   user.

Further details can be found in ESP-r Central's change
log by providing the following URL to your web browser:
https://esp-r.net/wsvn/espr/wsvn/esp-r/.



Details about the binary distributions:

a) Linux installer for either the legacy X11 interface or the GTK  
based interface
      This has been tested on Mandriva and Fedora Core 4 and 5 as  
well as
      Ubuntu 6.10.  The installer places ESP-r in /opt/esru now  
rather than the
      traditional (non-standard) /usr/esru folder.

b) Mac OSX 10.4+ installer for PPC based computers for either the  
legacy X11 interface
     or the GTK based interface.  It runs natively on PPC machines  
and in emulation
     mode on Intel based machines.  The installer places ESP-r in / 
opt/esru.

c) Cygwin emulation environment on Windows 2K/XP for either the  
legacy X11
     interface or the GTK based interface.  The installer places ESP- 
r in /usr/esru.

d) Native windows uses a graphical installer and places the GTK based
     interface in C:/Esru

Each installer has a matching documentation file that provides  
additional
information.

Source code:

The source code may be accessed via the ESP-r Central Subversion
repository.  To do this, you must first install a Subversion client on
your system.  Free clients are available at
http://subversion.tigris.org/project_packages.html.

Once you have installed the Subversion client you can download the
source code for version 11.3 of ESP-r anonymously using the following
command:
	svn checkout https://esp-r.net/espr/esp-r/trunk
	OR
	svn checkout http://esp-r.net/espr/esp-r/trunk
         OR (to omit the svn bookkeeping files)
	svn export https://esp-r.net/espr/esp-r/trunk

If you previously checked out version 11.1 or 11.2 with the above
command, then you do not have to do a full download of version 11.3.
Rather, you can update the source code by executing the following
command from your "trunk" directory:
	svn update

If you previously used svn export then you must repeat the export
command to get ESP-r.

We recommend this update to all current users of ESP-r.  If you have
not joined the community these installers can get you up and exploring!

-ESRU

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