Win4Deap 2

Win4Deap 2 provides a convivial Windows front end for DEAP written by Tim Coelli. As the name implies, it is an improved version of Win4DEAP. Contrary to what is sometimes written, Win4Deap 2 and Win4DEAP are not replacements of DEAP. It is the latter, a DOS console program, which performs the numerical calculations required in data envelopment analysis. Win4DEAP 2 will not make DEA calculations without an installed copy of DEAP.EXE. DEAP.EXE will work perfectly well without Win4DEAP 2.

Tim Coelli's DEAP and other similar applications are available at the Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis at the University of Queensland.

The application provides a grid not unlike a spreadsheet to enter data and writes the necessary instruction and data files for DEAP. This means that it is possible to have data files in a folder other than DEAP's. Win4DEAP 2 is a 32-bit Windows application. It has been tested on Windows 7 and 8.1 (64 bit)  but it probably runs on all versions of Windows starting with Windows XP.

DISCLAIMER:

Win4Deap 2 is free software that is provided as is. The author of the program accepts no responsibility for any damages that could be caused by this software and makes no warranty, whether implied or implicit, about its fitness for any purpose. The user assumes all risks associated with the program. Please read the copyright notice and license agreement for more.

Obtaining Win4Deap 2

The installation program for the latest version of Win4Deap 2 is available here: Win4Deap2Install-2-1-0-1.exe. Click on the link to start downloading the setup file. Check sums for the installation program are :

Types of installation

Win4Deap 2 can be run as a "standard" Windows' application or as a "portable" application. Roughly speaking,

as a standard application

Win4Deap 2 will associate .wdjson files to itself which requires modifying Windows' configuration information (the registry). Furthermore, the standard folders will be used to store the application's configuration file, and the application's data files.

as a portable application

Win4Deap 2 will make no changes to Windows' configuration. By default, the application's configuration file and data files will be stored in the folder containing the application.

Most often, a portable program is installed on removable media such as thumb drives. But it is entirely possible to choose to perform a portable installation in a hard drive's folder. Just make sure that you have full read and write rights on that folder. In that case, it will be possible to install DEAP in the same folder. Conversely, if DEAP is already installed, it should be possible to install Win4Deap 2 in the same folder.

The type of installation is specified at the very end of the installation process.

Installing

1. Make sure Tim Coelli's program DEAP.EXE is installed and running on your computer. It can be found Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis at the University of Queensland. It bears repeating, make sure DEAP.EXE works before trying to install Win4Deap 2. 
2. Select the installation language (English or French). This is the language used by the installation program and has nothing to do with the language used in Win4Deap 2.
3. Read the Welcome screen and click on Next >.
4. Read the License Agreement, select "I accept the agreement" if you do and then click on Next >.
5. Select the destination folder.
   • For a standard installation, you can probably accept the default location.
   • For a portable installation, browse to a folder where you have full read and write permissions. That excludes folders Windows, Program Files and, on 64 bit systems, Program files (x86).
6. Select the start menu folder.
   • For a standard installation, you can probably accept the default location.
   • For a portable installation, accept the default, it will be ignored in any case as nothing will be added to the Start menu.
7. Select the type of installation (standard or portable). It is also possible to include national language support or not. Currently Win4Deap 2 is available in two languages: English and French. You can translate it to other languages if you include language support.
8. Finally click on the Install button and, once installation is completed
9. Click on the Finish button.

If a standard installation was chosen, the extension .wdjson will be associated with Win4Deap 2 which will cause it to be launched whenever a file with that extension is double clicked. Also an uninstall program will be installed. Finally, a menu item will be added to the Start menu. If a portable installation was selected, the file association will not be performed and the uninstall program will not be created.

It is possible to choose DEAP's folder as the destination folder.In that case Win4Deap 2 will find DEAP.EXE. If Win4Deap 2 is installed in a folder other than DEAP's, it is necessary to specify the location of DEAP.EXE in the Win4Deap 2's Preferences dialogue.

Example files

Tim Coelli's four examples are provided in Win4DEAP 2 format (extension .wdjson). They are in a folder called, appropriately, Examples . In a standard installation, that folder will be in a folder called Win4Deap2 in the user's Document folder. In a portable installation, Examples will be in the folder containing Win4Deap2.exe.

Instructions for use of Win4Deap 2

Win4Deap 2's help file is not complete. Nevertheless it should not be too difficult to figure out how it works.

WARNING:

Win4Deap 2 should be considered beta software. Backup data often and in both the native wdjson format and standard CSV formats.

Removing Win4Deap 2

An uninstall program is installed along with Win4Deap2.exe if a standard installation was performed. If a portable installation was chosen, manually delete the installed files. No changes were made to the system in that case.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Tim Coelli for DEAP without which Win4Deap 2 is of no use.

Thanks to Jean-Marc Huguenin, Université de Lausane, for helpful comments about Win4Deap 2 and for mentionning its predecessor, Win4DEAP, in the chapter entitled "Data Envelopment Analysis" which he contributed to the book Multi-criteria Decision Analysis: Methods and Software, Alessio Ishizaka & Philippe Nemery editors (2013) John Wiley and Sons. See also his paper Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) A pedagogical guide for decision makers in the public sector  IDHEAP - Cahier 276/2012, Institut de hautes études en administration publique.

Thanks to Jordan Russell for the Inno Setup Compiler which was used to create the installation program. The setup compilber can be found on the Web at http://www.innosetup.com.

This application was written in Object Pascal with the open source Free Pascal compiler and the free RAD IDE Lazarus:  http://www.freepascal.org/ and http://www.lazarus-ide.org/. Thanks to the team of dedicated volunteers for those excellent open source projects.

Most of the icons are from the Silk icon set by Mark James released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License: http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/.

The application's icon was created with the open source application Greenfish Icon Editor Pro (also written with FreePascal/Lazarus): http://greenfishsoftware.blogspot.ca/.

Latest changes

Version 2.1.0.1 - Changed version number to 2 to concord with the application's name and fixed many minor bugs.

Version 1.1.2.3 - Fixed errors with filenames containing non ascii characters and other minor bug corrections.

Version 1.1.1.3 - various bug corrections, compatibility with MDeap 2 project files completed.

Version 1.1.1.1 - bug correction (i) new project was creating value and price vectors twice the needed size and the saved project file was then not readable (ii) the period when working with panel data was not saved in models. Also modified the (json) file read/write routines to obtain interoperability with upcoming MDeap 2 program.

Version 1.1.0.20 - first released version