st: New Stata 8 version of -smileplot- on SSC

[Roger Newson <roger.newson@kcl.ac.uk>]

Dear All

Thanks to Kit Baum, the latest version of -smileplot-, with Stata 8 
graphics, is now downloadable from SSC. In Stata, type -ssc desc smileplot- 
to find out more.

The -smileplot- package takes, as input, a data set with 1 observation per 
estimated parameter and data on P-values and the corresponding parameter 
estimates, as might be created by -parmest-, -parmby-, -statsby- or 
-postfile-. It carries out one of a selection of multiple test procedures 
on the P-values, and expresses these multiple procedures graphically by 
drawing smile plots. A smile plot plots the P-values (on a reverse log 
scale) on the Y-axis against the estimates (or another variable) on the 
X-axis, with reference lines on the Y-axis corresponding to the uncorrected 
and corrected critical P-values. In the new version, the program 
-smileplot- has been upgraded to produce the new Stata 8 graphics. However, 
the program -multproc- is still Stata 7, and a new program -smileplot7- has 
been added for users who still want to draw smile plots using the old 
quick-and-dirty Stata 7 graphics. (For what it's worth, Stata 7 users can 
also still download the old Stata 7 version of -smileplot- from my website at
http://www.kcl-phs.org.uk/rogernewson/stata7/
and this might possibly reduce the amount of program revision required if 
and when they upgrade to Stata 8.)

I plan to present some examples of graphs from the new -smileplot- package 
at the 9th UK Stata User Meeting in London on 20 May. Thanks in advance to 
Kit Baum (again), my Adobe Acrobat presentation should soon be available 
for download on the RePEc page for the meeting at
http://ideas.repec.org/s/boc/usug03.html
along with downloadable material from the other presenters.

The new -smileplot- package does not yet have a dialog interface. This is 
going to be a more difficult project, because I am working under Windows 
98, which (as b. water and Jean Marie Linhart were saying only yesterday) 
is not an easy system to run advanced dialog boxes under. So, 
unfortunately, users who want their smile plots to look exactly right will 
still have to know to specify a -size()- suboption for title sizes, a 
-labsize()- suboption for axis tick label sizes, and a -mlabsize()- 
suboption for data point label sizes. However, this is of course not the 
fault of anybody at StataCorp. Thanks again to all at StataCorp for giving 
us all a beautiful graphics system.

Best wishes

Roger

--
Roger Newson
Lecturer in Medical Statistics
Department of Public Health Sciences
King's College London
5th Floor, Capital House
42 Weston Street
London SE1 3QD
United Kingdom

Tel: 020 7848 6648 International +44 20 7848 6648
Fax: 020 7848 6620 International +44 20 7848 6620
  or 020 7848 6605 International +44 20 7848 6605
Email: roger.newson@kcl.ac.uk

Opinions expressed are those of the author, not the institution.

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