The models you develop in Stella Professional can be used in both Stella and iThink version 10.1. This lets you develop Learning Environments and other interfaces that provide controlled interaction with your model. These can be deployed using isee Player, isee Runtime, or isee Netsim. For details on these methods, see the Version 10.1 documentation.
Stella Professional and Version 10.1 of both Stella and iThink have been designed to let you move models back and forth between products. Because Stella Professional has a much richer set of capabilities around both model appearance and Graph and Table support, there are some differences in the way things look and what output gets displayed. Editing models in one version of the software might cause changes to appearance in other versions, that won't be obvious while you're editing. Here are the key areas to be aware of.
When you open a model in Version 10.1, you'll see Tables and Graphs rendered as close to the original specifications as possible. Stella Professional supports some options, like variable and run combinations, that aren't available in Version 10.1. When you open these in 10.1, the variable will be displayed relative to the current run. Because of this, you may end up with a graph showing the same thing twice.
When you open a Stella Professional model in Version 10.1, you'll be asked if you want to keep the Tables, Graphs, and results for the model. If you answer Yes to this question, then the original definitions for all your Tables and Graphs will be kept, and any runs you make while you're working in Version 10.1 will be discarded. The model, depending on other changes, will open the same way you left it in Stella Professional. This functionality is designed to allow interface development work in 10.1 that complements the modeling work you're doing in Stella Professional. If you answer No to this question, and make a run in Version 10.1, the Tables and Graphs you created will be changed and you might lose information. Similarly, directly editing a table or graph will change what appears when you reopen the model.
Going in the other direction, Stella Professional doesn't use the concept of a Locked Table or Graph directly; any Tables or Graphs locked in version 10.1 will be unlocked when you open a model in Stella Professional, but they should have the same content. If you save the model and reopen it in version 10.1, the Graphs and Tables will stay unlocked, but still retain content.
Stella Professional supports object-specific specification of fonts and colors, and variable sizing for Stocks and Converters or Bezier connectors. When you open a model in Version 10.1, none of those things will be displayed, but the information about the attributes will be retained. If you save the model in Version 10.1, and then reopen it in Stella Professional, it will look the same as it did before.
If you edit the model, however, some of this information will be lost.
If you move an object, its size information will be lost, and its position information will be changed.
Any connectors into or out of a moved object will be reset to default properties.
If you color an object, any special information it had before (including size) will be lost.
Because of this, you may want to restrict editing work in Version 10.1 to the interface layer. The one exception to this is the use of Storytelling, where you may want to adjust the model diagram to unfold more elegantly. In this case, keeping the diagram the same between the two versions of the software might still be sensible, because as it will let you use the positioning grids and superior editing capabilities of Stella Professional to make the presentation as attractive as possible.
Although you can't see the interface in Stella Professional, the software is nonetheless aware of its content. This means that any changes you make to variable names will automatically be reflected in any Controls, Graphs, or Tables referring to those variables. Changes to layout will also be reflected in any Storytelling used in the interface. This way, you can proceed with the ongoing development of both the model and interface without having to continually redo what you've worked on so far.