TOPCAT v4.3 release

[Mark Taylor]

Dear topcat users,

this is to announce the following releases:

   TOPCAT v4.3
   STILTS v3.0-4
   STIL   v3.0-13

The main new item is a major overhaul of TOPCAT's TAP window.
TAP (the Table Access Protocol) is a Virtual Observatory protocol
that allows you to make SQL-like queries against remote databases.
It's a very powerful way to extract meaning from large and complex
archives.  The new TAP functionality in TOPCAT features many
improvements to make it easier to locate, understand
and query remote data, can interact smoothly with very
large services (e.g. TAPVizieR's ~30,000 table dataset),
and generally works much better than before.  See the docs at
http://www.starlink.ac.uk/topcat/sun253/TapTableLoadDialog.html
or just try it out.

This release also fixes a number of bugs, including a longstanding
one that reported the values of bit vector columns (TFORMn='rX') 
in FITS tables incorrectly (for which I apologise); if you use 
bit vectors in FITS you should upgrade.

Full detail on the changes (including numerous other bug fixes and
minor enhancements) is in the change logs.
The releases are available at the usual places:

    http://www.starlink.ac.uk/topcat/
    http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stilts/
    http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stil/

As usual, any queries, suggestions, bug reports or other feedback
is most welcome.  In particular if you're a TAP service provider
who has queries about how topcat's TAP client is working with
your service, I'm very happy to talk to you.

Thanks for your interest,

Mark

--
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-9288776  http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/