setting highlight color and font size

[Dushan Mitrovich]

I'm running Mathematica 9.01 under Mountain Lion X.8.3, and have 3 questions to
which I haven't been able to find answers:

* When some text, or a cell is selected the highlight background color
is now a light blue; where do I change that default? I don't recog-
nize anything in Option Inspector that does that.

* The Input command produces a box into which one can type something;
I would like to change the default font and size of what is typed
to something more easily readable. Where is that done?

* In the Input box, if I type in some word, Mathematica does not consider
that to be either a string or numeric (StringQ and NumericQ both
produce 'False'). So what is it, and how does one learn an object's
type other than by testing?

Thanks for the help.

- Dushan
[ reverse the middle word of address to reply ]

[Bob Hanlon]

(1) I don't know.

(2) An easy thing to do is to change the display magnification at the
bottom of the workbook window or use the menu command

Window | Magnification


(3) Until assigned a value, what you type is a Symbol.


Head /@ {word, 2, Pi, Pi // N, 3.14, 1/4, "str"}


{Symbol, Integer, Symbol, Real, Real, Rational, String}


#[word] & /@ {Head, StringQ, NumericQ}


{Symbol, False, False}


word = 2;


#[word] & /@ {Head, StringQ, NumericQ}


{Integer, False, True}


word = "str";


#[word] & /@ {Head, StringQ, NumericQ}


{String, True, False}


word =.


#[word] & /@ {Head, StringQ, NumericQ}


{Symbol, False, False}



Bob Hanlon

[Dushan Mitrovich]

Bob Hanlon wrote:
> (1) I don't know.
>
> (2) An easy thing to do is to change the display magnification at the
> bottom of the workbook window or use the menu command
>
> Window | Magnification

Yes, this would work for me, but I'll be converting the whole thing to
CDF for my wife's use (it's a cash-flow projection pgm) so that method
isn't going to be very effective. I'd like to make it user-proof.

>
> (3) Until assigned a value, what you type is a Symbol.
>
> Head /@ {word, 2, Pi, Pi // N, 3.14, 1/4, "str"}
>
> {Symbol, Integer, Symbol, Real, Real, Rational, String}
>
> #[word] & /@ {Head, StringQ, NumericQ}
>
> {Symbol, False, False}
>
> word = 2;
>
> #[word] & /@ {Head, StringQ, NumericQ}
>
> {Integer, False, True}
>
> word = "str";
>
> #[word] & /@ {Head, StringQ, NumericQ}
>
> {String, True, False}
>
> word =.
>
> #[word] & /@ {Head, StringQ, NumericQ}
>
> {Symbol, False, False}
>
>
> Bob Hanlon
>

Thanks for all these examples, they illustrate your point effectively.

- Dushan
[ reverse the middle word of address to reply directly ]