A new version of Habit, version 2.2.6, is now available for download! 

This version is a roll-up of several changes and bug fixes made over the last few months. Some of you have a preview of this version, labelled 2.2.5-rcN (N=1,2,3,4). I've thrown a couple more changes in and I decided to skip over 2.2.5 entirely and skip the numbering to 2.2.6. 

MacOS users

   The installer you download for this version will depend on what version of macOS you are using.

   Its a long story, so I won't bore you with the details. In a nutshell: Something changed in mac Mojave that affected Habit, and the fix is slightly different on newer versions of macOS (High Sierra and Mojave) than it is on older versions of macOS (El Capitan and Sierra)​. 

   Check your computer before downloading (click Apple Menu > About This Mac). The installer will not allow you to install on the wrong version - so if you attempt to install and you are told you "cannot install Habit on this volume" - it means that you've got the installer for the wrong version of your macOS. Download again and install!

Dark Theme

   As long as we're on the topic, I recommend against using Dark Theme when running Habit experiments.

Changes in this version of Habit

Updates to signatures

   Some of you may notice that, starting with this release, ALL versions of Habit downloaded from our site have been signed digitally. For you that means you can trust that the installer file itself and the executable file have not been modified between the time they were created on my computer to when they were installed (and used) on yours. 

   These security things work a bit differently on Mac than they do on Windows, but beneath it all is a digital "certificate" issued to the University of California, Davis, which in turn assigns it to me. This establishes a chain of trust through a set of "legitimate" organizations that leads to me. The "certificate" is used to encrypt files in a particular way so that any tampering with the file can be detected at run time. All you need to know is this: If your OS allows the program to run, then it has not been altered since it left my desk. That's not to say the program will be free of errors (a goal of mine, but it can be elusive;), but only that the file(s) you download and access are exactly those which I compiled, gathered into installer files, and distributed via our website. 

Randomization bug (Mac, Win)

   There was a bug that occurred when running an experiment where multiple phases used randomized ordering of stimuli. In such a case, the two phases may have been assigned the SAME ORDER. This has been fixed. 
   Note that this only applies to a single run of the experiment, and only only applies to the ordering of the stimuli, not the stimuli themselves. 

Repeated stimuli (Mac, Win)

   When consecutive stimuli were the same, or when the same stimuli are used on trials with one intervening trial using a different stimulus - the second showing of the stimulus was always full screen,  regardless of your Stimulus Display options. In other words, if 

• Stimulus Display was set to be "Display Full Screen/Maintain aspect ratio" or "Use Original Stimulus Size", AND
• Your stimuli, when correctly displayed, did not fill the entire screen (and so had borders filled with the background color), AND
• The same stimulus file(s) were used on trials 1 and 2, or on trials 1 and 3 (similarly for 2/3, 2/4, etc), 

then the bug was in the display of the second occurrence of the stimulus. This has been fixed. 

Dual stimuli, multiple audio streams, looping (Mac, win)

   There were a handful of bugs reported under various scenarios, mostly related to this combination of things. The bug was either a "stuck" stimulus - which stopped and did not loop correctly - or a CRASH of Habit! 

UI Changes (Mac, Win)

   Clarify language explaining monitor settings in Workspace Preferences dialog. 
   Fix Modify Stimulus dialog so the entire stimulus file path is displayed. 
   Make fonts in all dialogs consistent across entire application. 

Future changes

   I will be releasing a linux version of habit, but it awaits some effort in properly packaging it. If any of you are interested please let me know. 

   I am working on adding digital signals - which you can use to synchronize your habit data with other data streams. If this interests you, please contact me and tell me the hardware interface you plan to use (serial, parallel, TCP/IP). 

   Finally, I'm testing a feature that will allow you to record a video stream from a USB camera, and to have Habit embed markers directly into that stream to indicate the start and end of stimuli presentations. More on this as it develops. 

A methods publication is now available. Please use this as a citation in your work. Habit will continue to evolve, so always refer to the website for the latest version. 

   I've just released an update to Habit, available for both Mac and Windows. This version is a drop-in replacement of existing installations of Habit. (*) 

   Key changes to Habit in this version:

• Three stimuli! See below...
• Habituation by total looking time is now fixed for all cases. An earlier fix neglected to fix all possible cases. I apologize if you've been caught up by this bug. When you specify a phase to use habituation by total looking time, then the phase will end when that amount of looking has been reached, or when the maximum number of trials has been completed. 
• Hitting ESC while viewing the results for an experiment caused Habit to crash! This has been fixed. 

(*) For users with ongoing studies in Habit version 2.1.26 and less: please continue your data collection with that version until studies are complete. You can install the latest version (2.2.4) alongside your existing 2.1.x installation. If you do, however, be aware that version 2.2.x uses a different database for settings than the older 2.1.x versions - so changes made to experiment settings while running 2.2.x are not seen in 2.1.x, and vice-versa.


Three Stimuli?

   Several users have asked about having a third stimulus screen. This version of Habit allows experiments with one, two, or three stimuli. In the Experiment Editor, the "Stimulus Display" tab now looks like this:

Note that under "Stimuli Layout" there are three radio buttons - previously there were only two choices. When "Three Stimuli" is chosen, all stimuli (and attention getter, if used) will have three positions - left, center, right. In order to run such an experiment on multiple screens, you still must identify the screens in the Global Preferences dialog. In that dialog, the "Single Stimulus" monitor is used as the "Center" stimulus, and the two "Dual stimulus" monitors are the "Left" and "Right" stimuli, respectively.  

    I've released a new version of Habit for Mac and Windows: version 2.2.3. This version is a drop-in replacement for Habit 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 (2.2.1 users may upgrade directly to 2.2.3). Your existing settings (from 2.2.x) are preserved and will continue to work with this newer version. 
   There are some bug fixes in this release, outlined below. I appreciate the bug reports I've received and have tried to address them all - the results of that work is reflected in this release. Thank you, Habit users!  Please don't hesitate to contact us with bug reports, feature requests, and general questions. 

What's new in this version?

• Fixed inconsistencies in settings for Intertrial Interval. The experiment editor had allowed situations where an experiment required an attention getter stimulus, but where none (neither a file stimulus or background color only) was actually specified. This would cause the experiment to hang on startup. Also, when a fixed time interval was chosen there was no option to select the stimulus, and that could lead to the same situation - where Habit attempted to play/display an interval trial stimulus but none was configured. 
• CSV output files now correctly includes the order chosen for stimuli in each phase, and indicates what, if any, randomization type was chosen. Note: The CSV output files for experiments run previously can be regenerated by viewing the results file (*.hab) in the Results Viewer and clicking "Export CSV". 
• The experiment summary page now displays the subject ID (this is restricted to be an integer ID number), observer (text), and comments. As with the CSV output above, the experiment summary page can be re-generated by viewing the results file (*.hab) in the Results Viewer. 

Note to users of older versions of MacOS

   A lab here at UCD runs Habit on an older version of MacOS (10.10, "Yosemite"). When starting an experiment on this machine, the "Control Panel" dialog would take over the entire screen, and could not be reduced in size. After the experiment was ended, a black screen remained (requiring the user to switch apps using AppleKey-TAB) to return to the main Habit window. This is due to a slight difference in screen management at the OS level, but I found a workaround and the problem is fixed in this update. 
   Obviously, an OS upgrade would likely fix the problem, but I'd stop short of recommending upgrading your OS for Habit, because this workaround takes care of this problem. If you continue to use an older version of macOS and if you encounter any problems with Habit, please let me know!
​
Windows Users?

   I'm waiting to hear from Windows users about their experiences. I'm going to assume that "no news is good news", but given the number of downloads, I expect that users will find bugs or errors (assuming they exist) in the Windows version.

What's next?

   Some developments in the pipeline, based on feedback from users:

• Providing signals to external systems (like eye trackers or video capture devices) to synchronize those systems with stimulus presentation in Habit.
• Multiple attention-getter stimuli in a single experiment
• Using a single, large, screen to display dual-stimuli experiments 

   Do you have a feature request, or would you like to up-vote any of these developments? Contact us, and let us know!

   After many months of development, we're finally releasing Habit2 for Windows! Download Habit 2.2.2 for Mac or Windows now!

   Habit 2.2.2 has some important fixes to version 2.2.1, so all users of Habit 2.2.1 should update their version (see below for changes and bug fixes). The Windows version is based on the same code, with only minor variations due to the differences between the Mac and Windows platforms. More on that, too, below.

   I want to thank all the folks who have quietly (some less so than others:) urged us to release Habit for Windows. That goes for all of you who have submitted bug reports, requested features, sent thanks and encouraging words, or just USED Habit for your research. Knowing that there are satisfied users out there is plenty of incentive to keep pushing on development. On a personal note, there was no small amount of difficulty in my personal life in the last year and a half, and that slowed development down significantly for a while. I want to extend my thanks to Prof. Lisa Oakes (Infant Cognition Lab, UC Davis) and  Prof. Marty Usrey (my direct supervisor) for their forbearance, patience, and understanding during this time. 

   My goal has been to maintain a single set of code that would compile and run on each platform. Sounds great, but its easier said than done. For starters, the multimedia library that was used in earlier versions of Habit was Mac-only. I devoted quite a bit of time to choosing (and learning to use) a new multimedia library (called GStreamer, in case you're interested) that would satisfy the requirements that Habit imposed. Integrating GStreamer into Habit's codebase, and adapting to the quirks and limitations of a library as complex as GStreamer all took significant time and effort. I updated the user interface. migrating from Qt4 to Qt5. I made significant changes beneath the hood, as it were, to position Habit for more changes to come. All in all, it was a long slog, but the time has come to release it and see what you all think. All these things required a ton of testing (and I still didn't do enough), and led, inevitably, to the introduction of a multitude of bugs. I've found and fixed quite a few, and some of you all have found quite a few others. There's a new class of bug, where a bug exists on one platform but not the other. Yes, I said Habit is grown from a single codebase, but that doesn't mean the program runs identically on Windows and the Mac.  Well, enough of my complaining, let's get into what you can expect from Habit 2.2.2.

Changes in Habit 2.2.2

• Multimedia fixes. Certain container media files (movie files with sound) that were set to LOOP (common way to configure attention getters, for instance) would freeze during playback, forcing users to stop Habit and restart. This is BAD during an experiment. This bug has been found and fixed. If you experience this issue, please contact me (and send along a sample movie file, if you can, that causes the hang). 
• When trials were repeated, the stimuli files were always scaled to full screen, even if Habit was configured to display images/movies at their original size. This only occurred when a trial ended with a repeat condition, not if a trial ended successfully. This has been fixed. 
• Stimulus orders and randomization did not play well together. This was a bug new to habit 2.2 (it didn't exist in the 2.1.x series of Habit releases) and has been fixed. 
• The habituation event was not recorded during habituation-type phases (either Criterion-to-end or Total-looking-time types), regardless of success/failure. This is fixed. 
• The experiment editor window now checks whether any settings have changed when the user hits "Cancel", or destroys the dialog. Previously, the checks that were performed didn't work as expected. Now Habit will prevent you from dismissing the editor dialog if you have unsaved changes to your experiment settings -- you will be asked whether you want to save the changes or not.

Known problems

• Certain multimedia files will not display the visual part of the stream, but the sound track works fine. If you encounter such a file, please send it to me (and tell me what tool(s) you used to create it). This problem seems isolated to certain tools (so far I only have a couple of avi's that were created with Microsoft PowerPoint, though I have others created with that tool that work fine, video and audio).
• The icons on Windows are ... ugh. I have no illusions about my meager artistic abilities. It turns out my weakness extends to pixel art. I'll continue working on it..... If there's anyone out there who has any skills in pixel art and some spare time.... let me know:)

​
​Documentation update

   I've been migrating the Habit User Manual to an online HTML format. The online docs are based on the User Manual, and the conversion is not yet complete. As of this writing, the pdf User Manual is the most complete documentation, but the online version will catch up soon (and will overtake it, as this will be the place for documenting updates to Habit).

Windows quirks

   These exist, of course, because Windows and OS/X are quite different. There aren't too many differences, though, and most of them are things that an ordinary user would not notice. 

• The stimuli files for the template experiments are located in the folder c:/ProgramData/habit2. When a template experiment is used, the stimuli are given absolute file paths, full paths to the files themselves. On the Mac, the stim files are located within the workspace itself. 
• When you run an experiment in "test mode" - where the stimuli window(s) is(are) displayed in a window on your regular screen - that stimuli window will be displayed at a fixed position on your desktop, and cannot be moved. Furthermore, that windows may be behind the "Control Panel" window, which CAN be moved to expose the stimuli window. 
• The windows version will automatically create a log file every time it is run. This is a precaution I added in the event of bugs - these log files may be useful in debugging or tracking down bugs that users report. There isn't much in the log file for the regular user, and I'll change the windows release sometime in the future to turn off the log files by default. Again, this is not something you'll notice unless you go looking for it. It has no effect on the operation of Habit. 

Notable 

   You will find that Habit workspaces can be moved between Windows and Mac computers. Experiments that are exported from one platform can be imported on another platform as well. One significant problem has to do with the file paths stored for stimulus files. If your experiment(s) use the Default Stim Root, and you are able to configure the value on the target computer, the move will work as expected. If any of your stimuli use full file paths, however, those file paths will not be the same when you move to a different computer (this is true even when moving an experiment between two Macs, or between two Windows computers), and you will have to modify the paths to each stimulus file after the move. 


​

   Its been a long time, but the time has finally come to release a new version of Habit. We're calling this version 2.2.1, and there's a lot that's changed. We have a new User's Manual (draft version), and we've submitted a methods paper describing habit2. Here's some of the key changes you'll see (and some that you won't see):

• More flexibility in experiment design. In habit2 you can design experiments with any number of phases (instead of the fixed 3-phase experiments from the previous version). 
• Template experiments - habit2 comes with a set of template experiments (described in our methods paper) that reproduce several experiments, each of which illustrates a different methodology.
• Settings saved per-workspace. The previous version of habit saved your preferences for all instances of habit running on your computer. In habit2, however, your preferences (monitor selections and stimulus root folder) are saved separately for each workspace you use. 
• Dual-stimulus synchronicity! Dual-stimulus experiments do not display a visible latency between the presentation on each of the stimuli monitors. In the previous version of habit, there was a visible lag between the two monitors. No more!
• Windows version coming soon! You heard that right, I've got a beta version for windows that I'll be releasing _very_ soon. Stay tuned!

   You can't have an update like this without a few WORDS OF CAUTION: If you are currently collecting data using the previous version of habit, you should continue to do so with the same version until the study is/are complete. This is a precaution against introducing systematic differences in your data set(s), which may depend in some way on the version of habit.  If you begin a study using habit2, however, you can continue to collect data using any updates to habit2 that may come along. 

   The newest version of habit2 will coexist with habit. There are implications to this which you should understand. First and foremost, habit2 uses a different database format than habit did. As a consequence, when you open a workspace with habit2, your database (which holds all of your experiment settings) is copied and updated to work with habit2. Once this happens, changes made to your experiments using habit2 do not affect the settings in your original habit database. 

   This may be confusing for some of you - especially those of you that have ongoing experiments and must continue using original habit. For those of you who are using habit2 for the first time, or if you do not have ongoing experiments which require original habit, none of this matters. You may uninstall original habit manually if you choose. 

A word or two about ... bugs

   Like any good software developer, I do NOT include bugs in my code, and I certainly never intentionally included any in this version of Habit. I've found that there are ways, mainly due to neutrino interactions with my hard drive, that bugs do find their way into Habit. 

   OK, that's not true. There are certainly bugs in Habit. There's over 100,000 lines of code in there, believe it or not, and there's bound to be a mistake or two lurking. And after a huge update like this, well, I can only test so much. 

   That's where you come in. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you find bugs, have questions about configuring an experiment, or have feature suggestions that you (and other users) might find helpful. 

A new version of Habit, version 2.1.25, is available for download! You may install this version (if you choose) over your existing version - your experimental settings and results will be saved.

What's changed?

   Well, a lot, actually, but not much that you will see....yet. I've begun making some major changes under the hood, preparing for a major new release this summer (along with a long-awaited methods paper describing Habit2 and its many uses).
   There are several changes which you will see, along with some minor bug fixes that will clean up some problems that users have reported (THANK YOU to all of you who have taken the time to report errors and problems!). 

You say "tomato"...

   Several users reported situations where they created experiments with valid stimuli, but found that the stimuli names were yellowed out in the "Stimuli" panel, or sometimes the "Stimuli Orders" panel of the Experiment Editor. The yellow color indicated a problem, but there was no clear reason (this occurred even when the stimuli were all valid files present on the computer).
   The bug (fixed in this version) was due to Habit2 using different "rules" for the names that can be given to stimuli. What was allowed as a name when the stimulus was added to the experiment was NOT allowed in other contexts within Habit. This inconsistency has been corrected.
   For the record, stimulus names (the names you give them, not their filenames) must adhere to the following rules. The dialog will enforce these rules as you type - so there isn't really a need to remember them. The rules are that a stimulus name:

• must begin with a letter or number
  
• contains letters, numbers, and/or these characters: space,  _ (underscore), - (dash), ' (single quote)
  
• trailing space(s) are trimmed before saving in the database
  

Results Viewer changes

   The Results Viewer has been changed somewhat. Previously you could use the Results Viewer to view results and  examine experiment settings in use when a particular result was obtained.
   I've cleaned up the display a bit, and you will notice that two types of files are displayed: *.hab file (the results file written on completion of an experimental run), and *.csv file (exported results data for use in you analysis).

    Double-clicking on a csv file will open that file in Excel (assuming you have Excel installed on your computer). Double-clicking on a results (*.hab) file will open that file and present you with 4 options (there used to be just 3):

   A new version of Habit is available, with some small fixes and some larger changes. Many of the changes are in response to comments and/or suggestions from users who have downloaded Habit and are using it - THANK YOU!
   You can download the latest version and install over your current version. All your settings will be preserved.

Bug Fixes and Changes in Habit 2.1.21

• What happened to version 2.1.20? Nothing - I created that version and discovered a minor issue after creating it. I made the fix and created a new version. But let me remind you that you can always update Habit2 regardless of missing version numbers.
  
• Main dialog appearance. The main dialog has been changed slightly. The title includes the version of Habit2, and the status bar (the gray panel at the bottom left of the dialog) shows the current workspace folder:
  

   A number of changes and fixes have been rolled into one release. We've also been fielding a few questions about Habit now that people are downloading and using it. I'll update you on the fixes below, and I'll also answer some of the more common questions.

   As always, you may download the latest Habit and install over your existing version. Your existing settings and experimental results will be preserved across versions.

Bug fixes and changes in 2.1.19

• There has been a tricky bug (now fixed) that can crop up when you use an Attention Getter (AG). When the AG is presented, the experimenter should hit the <Enter> key to start the trial, and then use the keypad keys (e.g. <4>, <5>, or <6>) to indicate looking behavior. If those keys were hit in quick succession, Habit sometimes missed the <4,5,6>! This is now fixed! Of course, I thought I had fixed it a couple of weeks ago, but I think I really got it this time!
• Stimulus sizing has been fixed. The Stimulus Display page of the experiment editor allows you to choose whether habit should display your stimuli files at their original size, or at full screen. When displaying stimuli at their original size, and the stimuli is smaller than the screen used to display it, Habit will center the stimulus and fill in the edges with the background color you've chosen. When you choose to display stimuli full screen, Habit will resize the stimulus (if needed) to fill the screen. You can check the Maintain Original Aspect Ratio box, and Habit will choose the maximum size of the stimulus which fits on the screen and preserves the aspect ratio of the original (and fill in the edges with the Background Color). If the Maintain Original Aspect Ratio box is unchecked, then Habit will stretch (and possibly distort) the stimulus to fill the entire screen. Note that in the stimulus preview (seen when you configure stimulus for any of the phases), the "screen" is always a 4:3 aspect ratio, which may differ from your display screen.

We've rolled a few bug fixes (many thanks to those of you who have reported bugs!) into this updated version. Download the update and install over your existing version of Habit. All your current settings will be preserved.

Changes from version 2.1.16

• Display and results now number trials starting at trial 1 (not trial 0..... long story, ask a programmer;). This is true for the results widget that is shown immediately on completing an experimental run, the output CSV file, as well as in the live experiment status widget (if you have chosen to display current experiment phase/trial in "Control Panel Display Options").
• Add option "Display Current Looking Direction" in "Control Panel Display Options". When checked, the current looking direction (e.g. "LookCenter") will be displayed in the Control Panel while your experiment is running.
• The stimulus previewer now handles stimulus orders. Forward/reverse navigation buttons are available, as well as a "stop" button.
• Stimuli for single-screen experiments are not pre-loaded and cached. Previously, large stimuli could use up all available memory and cause a crash. For single-screen experiments, it is not necessary to cache stimuli. In two-screen experiments, however, the stimuli are cached to minimize the time difference in the onset of the two stimuli. In such experiments, large stimuli can cause a crash if all available memory is taken up.
• In experiments that use attention getters, if the experimenter makes a fast transition from the "Attention"(Enter) key and a "Looking"(4,5,6) key, Habit will correctly respond to the key transition and looking will be recorded. Previously, the start of the looking period would be missed entirely.
  
• Global preferences now has a checkbox to use the default stimulus root folder for the workspace. For each workspace the default stimulus root folder is the stim/ folder in the workspace. This is a convenience for cases where you group a set of similar experiments (which all use the same set of stimuli) in a single workspace. Simply check the default stim root folder checkbox in the preferences dialog and you're set!