[László Sándor]

And here's one more: I already wrote that (e.g.?) monetDB's column-based storage and smarter indexing allows orders of magnitude faster selection of the data and also some calculations. Even if Stata does not tap into this (free) resource like monetDB-R does for R, at least it could allow a bit smarter use via -odbc-: please let us -odbc merge-. Again, it is very inefficient to -preserve-, then -odbc load-, -save- and then -merge-.

[Phil Clayton]

Oh, and please allow merging-joining on variables having different names in the two datasets. It is a bit dangerous, but caveat emptor. Again, it is messy (equally dangerous?) to rename variables temporarily either in master or in using that one can forgot to undo.

I agree this would be nice, but in the meantime you can do this using the user-written mmerge package (SSC) using its umatch() option

[László Sándor]

I agree this would be nice, but in the meantime you can do this using the user-written mmerge package (SSC) using its umatch() option

True and useful, thanks. But relatedly, why can't we rename variables without loading the entire data? If -describe- can access the variable names without loading, clearly -rename- could too!

[Andrew Lover]

Firth penalized likelihood methods for Cox models, and making -firthlogit- (SSC) a fully supported model would be a welcome addition.

[Isaac Maddow-Zimet]

It would be great if Stata's do-file editor would let code-folding persist across sessions. As it stands, you can hide blocks of code within brackets but they automatically expand every time you reopen the file.

[László Sándor]

Some version of the -case- (also called -switch- or -select-) command that is available in other programming languages. I usually accomplish the same thing with either a series of -if- statements or set of nested -cond()- calls; neither is very easy to read.

aSorry I overlooked this and resuggested a case() function. Though a command would be a different thing. A case function would replace nested cold functions. What should a case command do? Also note that repeated if calls are not only hard to read — they can be remarkably slower on big data (needlessly looping over the data again and again).

[László Sándor]

Other little things:

Multiple variables to absorb with -areg-.
Multiple variables to cluster by/on. (Which can be very slow without a neat C implementation.)
Detrending in -xtreg- or -areg-, i.e. actually allowing group-level trends/coefficients without blowing up -regress- with i.group##c.time. (There is a reason why -xtreg- and -areg- are orders of magnitude faster.)

[simoncmoore]

Would anyone happen to know when Stata 14 might be released?

And as this is a wishlist - I kind of feel more might be done in respect of data visualisation, particularly as more and more work is ending up online. It would be lovely to easily create interactive graphics through Stata. I realise some animation is possible, but was thinking more along the lines of interactive visualisation. Like some of the examples found here http://humblesoftware.com/flotr2/index or here http://worrydream.com/Tangle/

[Nick Cox]

On release dates: see many previous posts e.g. http://www.stata.com/statalist/archi.../msg00782.html

[László Sándor]

Would anyone happen to know when Stata 14 might be released?

And as this is a wishlist - I kind of feel more might be done in respect of data visualisation, particularly as more and more work is ending up online. It would be lovely to easily create interactive graphics through Stata. I realise some animation is possible, but was thinking more along the lines of interactive visualisation. Like some of the examples found here http://humblesoftware.com/flotr2/index or here http://worrydream.com/Tangle/

I am afraid there are no standards for this, so it is hard to think they pick one tool among many. But you might also enjoy the free e-book: http://alignedleft.com/work/d3-book

[Phil Bromiley]

While I have work arounds for most of these, it would be nice if:
1. Stata could produce a large correlation table in the format we often see required by journals.
2. The built-in procedure for outputting tables was as powerful as outreg2. For example, I'd like it to handle Word files.
3. xtregar handled changes in variance by panel. We can go to robust estimators of variance, but this is not the same as changing the variances in the estimation of the betas.
4. The documentation in the treatment manual is good but not as complete and helpful as the documentation in other areas of Stata.
5. The do file editor allowed split screens. I often want to see exactly how I wrote something up top when I'm working on it further down the program.

[Clyde Schechter]

+1 for split screens in the do file editor.

[Christophe Kolodziejczyk]

On split screen. You can already do that or am I missing something?

[Clyde Schechter]

On split screen. You can already do that or am I missing something?

Really? How? I never knew and would love to learn. I don't see it in the manual, and I don't find anything like it in the drop-down menus or editors of the toolbar.

[Christophe Kolodziejczyk]

At least you can have two do files shown besides each other or stacked. If you several do files opened, you just have to drag one do-file and you'll be asked whether you want to tile it vertically or horizontally. I discovered this by chance actually. I guess what Phil wants is to split the same do file. i don't know if it is possible though. It could be that you can split the screen with one do file and open the same do-file in the other half of the screen. This feature would also be useful especially with long do-files. By the way, if you are using the project manager it would also be nice to drag do-files to add them to the project. The project manager is probably the best innovation of Stata 13. I can't help to talk about it to my colleagues :-).