Holoviews

**July 14, 2016**

A major release with an optional new data interface based on xarray,
support for batching Bokeh plots for huge increases in performance,
support for Bokeh 0.12 and various other fixes and improvements.

Features and improvements:

- Made VectorFieldPlot more general with support for independent
coloring and scaling (PR
[\701](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/701)).
- Iris interface now allows tuple and dict formats in the constructor
(PR [\709](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/709).
- Added support for dynamic groupby on all data interfaces (PR
[\711](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/711)).
- Added an xarray data interface (PR
[\713](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/713)).
- Added the redim method to all Dimensioned objects making it easy to
quickly change dimension names and attributes on nested objects
[\715](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/715)).
- Added support for batching plots (PR
[\715](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/717)).
- Support for Bokeh 0.12 release (PR
[\725](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/725)).
- Added support for logz option on Bokeh Raster plots (PR
[\729](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/729)).
- Bokeh plots now support custom tick formatters specified via
Dimension value_format (PR
[\728](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/728)).

**May 12, 2016**

A major release with a large number of new features including new data
interfaces for grid based data, major improvements for DynamicMaps and a
large number of bug fixes.

Features and improvements:

- Added a grid based data interface to explore n-dimensional gridded
data easily (PR
[\562](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/542)).
- Added data interface based on [iris
Cubes](http://scitools.org.uk/iris/docs/v1.9.2/index.html) (PR
[\624](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/624)).
- Added support for dynamic operations and overlaying of DynamicMaps
(PR [\588](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/588)).
- Added support for applying groupby operations to DynamicMaps (PR
[\667](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/667)).
- Added dimension value formatting in widgets (PR
[\562](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/562)).
- Added support for indexing and slicing with a function (PR
[\619](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/619)).
- Improved throttling behavior on widgets (PR
[\596](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/596)).
- Major refactor of Matplotlib plotting classes to simplify
implementing new Element plots (PR
[\438](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/438)).
- Added Renderer.last_plot attribute to allow easily debugging or
modifying the last displayed plot (PR
[\538](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/538)).
- Added Bokeh QuadMeshPlot (PR
[\661](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/661)).

Bug fixes:

- Fixed overlaying of 3D Element types (PR
[\504](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/504)).
- Fix for Bokeh hovertools with dimensions with special characters (PR
[\524](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/524)).
- Fixed bugs in seaborn Distribution Element (PR
[\630](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/630)).
- Fix for inverted Raster.reduce method (PR
[\672](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/672)).
- Fixed Store.add_style_opts method (PR
[\587](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/587)).
- Fixed bug preventing simultaneous logx and logy plot options (PR
[\554](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/554)).

Backwards compatibility:

- Renamed `Columns` type to `Dataset` (PR
[\620](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/620)).

**February 11, 2016**

A minor bugfix release to patch a number of small but important issues.

Fixes and improvements:

- Added a [DynamicMap
Tutorial](http://holoviews.org/Tutorials/Dynamic_Map.html) to
explain how to explore very large or continuous parameter spaces in
HoloViews ([PR
\470](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/470)).
- Various fixes and improvements for DynamicMaps including slicing
([PR \488](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/488)) and
validation ([PR
\483](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/478)) and
serialization ([PR
\483](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/478))
- Widgets containing Matplotlib plots now display the first frame from
cache providing at least the initial frame when exporting
DynamicMaps ([PR
\486](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/483))
- Fixed plotting Bokeh plots using widgets in live mode, after changes
introduced in latest Bokeh version (commit
[1b87c91e9](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/commit/1b87c91e9e7cf35b267344ccd4a2fa91dd052890)).
- Fixed issue in coloring Point/Scatter objects by values ([Issue
\467](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/467)).

Backwards compatibility:

- The behavior of the `scaling_factor` on Point and Scatter plots has
changed now simply multiplying `area` or `width` (as defined by the
`scaling_method`). To disable scaling points by a dimension set
`size_index=None`.
- Removed hooks to display 3D Elements using the `BokehMPLRawWrapper`
in Bokeh ([PR \477](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/477))
- Renamed the DynamicMap mode `closed` to `bounded` ([PR
\477](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/485))

**February 7, 2016**

Over the past month since the 1.4.1 release, we have improved our
infrastructure for building documentation, updated the main website and
made several additional usability improvements.

Documentation changes:

- Major overhaul of website and notebook building making it much
easier to test user contributions ([Issue
\180](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/180), [PR
\429](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/429))
- Major rewrite of the documentation ([PR
\401](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/401), [PR
\411](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/411))
- Added Columnar Data Tutorial and removed most of Pandas Conversions
as it is now supported by the core.

Fixes and improvements:

- Major improvement for grid based layouts with varying aspects ([PR
\457](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/457))
- Fix for interleaving %matplotline inline and holoviews plots ([Issue
\179](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/179))
- Matplotlib legend z-orders and updating fixed ([Issue
\304](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/304), [Issue
\305](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/305))
- `color_index` and `size_index` plot options support specifying
dimension by name ([Issue
\391](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/391))
- Added `Area` Element type for drawing area under or between Curves.
([PR \427](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/427))
- Fixed issues where slicing would remove styles applied to
an Element. ([Issue
\423](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/issues/423), [PR
\439](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/439))
- Updated the `title_format` plot option to support a `{dimensions}`
formatter ([PR \436](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/436))
- Improvements to Renderer API to allow JS and CSS requirements for
exporting standalone widgets ([PR
\426](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/426))
- Compatibility with the latest Bokeh 0.11 release ([PR
\393](https://github.com/pyviz/holoviews/pull/393))