Mathematica 6 review [first impressions]
scien...@libero.it
matrix algebra, with plotting, etc. are mine 80% activity on Mathematica.
I was curious on the hype that mounted. I look around for "first
impression" reports. But I did not find many. So here is mine. Just
first (partial) impressions on a Win2k. I hope someone can add others
Installation (trial v.): It is a big one! At the end in the Wolfram
folder there are more than 800Mb, plus I guess the files spread in
Application data and (I hope just few of them) in the System.
Interface: It did not change so much. I know that almost everyone say
it did. But inputs needed to be inserted as usual. I would say that
another system did change its interface (the one in Java) not Mathematica.
The first thing (I guess a big one) that one notices is the coloring code.
Helpful, but not amazing. Not all menus are in the same position. I
notice that "Palettes" have gain a place of first order (it was before
under "File" at least in v4.x).
Palettes: There are some new. One of it about layout (Document,
article, report, etc). But unfortunately I was unable to find the main
I always used: Basic Calculations. This is a big miss! For a saltuary
user it helped to input correctly and carry on the job, without too
much mistakes. If it is not hidden somewhere this is certainly a minus
of Mathematica 6. It was probably also in 5.2 (I do not have it): it is possible
to add new palettes from your calculations. To add them it easy. I
was unable to find how to remove them! (probably the only way is to go
in the folder where they are placed and physically remove them.)
Help files: You have the opportunity to see the 5 minutes introduction
to Mathematica 6. But the new helper system is indeed less helpful of the
revious versions of Mathematica. Several links are for online material.
Tutorials refer to (at least the one I met) to a online courses
(starting from $800!). Why they do not make tutorials online these
days! They will expand the possible user base and sell more copies!
Well this is a topic for next time. I notice also that the help is
also much slower than the old version. (My CPU is just 1100Mhz).
Dynamics and cursors: I look at What new and the main thing that I
remember was sliders and dynamics. They are nice features that
already attracted - as I see - here much attention. I do not have the
competence to assess if they are also revolutionary. For my needs
probably not.
Under the hood: in a fist impression after a day of experience I
cannot really assess them. I hope others can as I hope that others can
tell more on "user experience", not just "expert experience"
Szabolcs
You do not seem to be impressed, but you are focusing on the graphical
interface, while Mathematica is primarily a an interactive programming
system. You type in commands and the results are printed into the
notebook. Instead of using the palettes, spend some time exploring the
programming language first. Read the tutorials from the Core Language
section or look at some lecture notes on MathSource, e.g.:
http://library.wolfram.com/infocenter/MathSource/1847/
I am sure you will have a lot of fun with this :-)
The big improvement in the version interface 6 is the interactive
graphics. Now you can click on a plot and set line width, colour etc.
interactively. You can annotate graphs, rotate 3D objects or change the
aspect ratio of graphics by only using the mouse. These are huge
improvements over 5.2 even if you only use Mathematica for very simple
tasks. In earlier versions you had to type additional options manually
and re-evaluate the plotting command to make these kinds of changes.
And there is Manipulate[] -- a brilliant idea! This is probably the most
useful way to exploit a GUI in a system like Mathematica, encapsulated
in a single command. (Other systems do provide complicated gui toolkits,
but most of the time it is not worth spending time making a gui unless
you are building an application that will be used many times by many
people who are not familiar with programming.)
Or I could mention Locators for graphical input instead of the tedious
type coordinates, re-evaluate cycle ...
Nasser Abbasi
"Szabolcs" <szho...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f2rr94$a2r$1...@smc.vnet.net...
> scien...@libero.it wrote:
...
>
> The big improvement in the version interface 6 is the interactive
> graphics. Now you can click on a plot and set line width, colour etc.
> interactively.
How??
I can click on the plot to select it, then double click on it to move it,
and even modify the actual curve plotted with the mouse.
But I can seem to see how to change line width nor color or anything else.
Where in the help is this described?
thanks,
Nasser
scien...@libero.it
Szabolcs
Thank you very much for the link! You are right. Let me put in this way:
Powerfulness is one thing, friendness is another. I touch the sky
when I have both in one and the same thing.
Murray Eisenberg
Drawing palette. By selecting from that palette a tool such as the
point icon, you may now click inside the 2D graphic and insert a point,
etc.
To change color, thickness, point size, etc., either use Graphics >
Graphics Inspector or else click the slider/color swatch icon at the
bottom of the 2D Drawing palette to open the 2D Graphics Inspector panel.
You may now first select the color/thickness, etc., combination you want
and then click the graphic element you want to change in the graphic --
something you added with one of the tools, or an originally displayed
graphic element, e.g., the curve from a Plot. Or, first select the
graphic element and then choose the color/thickness, etc.
When selecting, say, the curve from a Plot, be sure to click until you
see the enlarged circles indicating the points used in the plot.
Nasser Abbasi wrote:
> "Szabolcs" <szho...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:f2rr94$a2r$1...@smc.vnet.net...
>> scien...@libero.it wrote:
>
> ...
>
>> The big improvement in the version interface 6 is the interactive
>> graphics. Now you can click on a plot and set line width, colour etc.
>> interactively.
>
> How??
>
> I can click on the plot to select it, then double click on it to move it,
> and even modify the actual curve plotted with the mouse.
>
> But I can seem to see how to change line width nor color or anything else.
>
> Where in the help is this described?
>
> thanks,
> Nasser
>
>
--
Murray Eisenberg mur...@math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 413 549-1020 (H)
University of Massachusetts 413 545-2859 (W)
710 North Pleasant Street fax 413 545-1801
Amherst, MA 01003-9305
Lev Bishop
>
> "Szabolcs" <szho...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:f2rr94$a2r$1...@smc.vnet.net...
> > graphics. Now you can click on a plot and set line width, colour etc.
> > interactively.
>
Press ctrl-G
> I can click on the plot to select it, then double click on it to move it,
> and even modify the actual curve plotted with the mouse.
>
> But I can seem to see how to change line width nor color or anything else.
>
> Where in the help is this described?
tutorial/InteractiveGraphicsOverview
Andrzej Kozlowski
On 22 May 2007, at 15:38, Nasser Abbasi wrote:
>
> "Szabolcs" <szho...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:f2rr94$a2r$1...@smc.vnet.net...
>> scien...@libero.it wrote:
>
> ...
>
>>
>> The big improvement in the version interface 6 is the interactive
>> graphics. Now you can click on a plot and set line width, colour etc.
>> interactively.
>
> How??
>
> I can click on the plot to select it, then double click on it to
> move it,
> and even modify the actual curve plotted with the mouse.
>
> But I can seem to see how to change line width nor color or
> anything else.
>
> Where in the help is this described?
>
> thanks,
> Nasser
>
>
With a 2-d graphic: just select the graphic (not the cell), open the
Graphic Inspector and you can change the colour, dashing, put on
arrowheads etc, all with the sliders or by clicking on the colour
palette.
I have not yet tried searching for this in the documentation; the
whole approach is so similar graphic programs like FreeHand or
Illustrator work that I had no difficulty guessing wihtout reading
any documentations. Like in the good old early days of the Mac ;-)
Andrzej Kozlowski
Szabolcs
> How??
>
> I can click on the plot to select it, then double click on it to move it,
> and even modify the actual curve plotted with the mouse.
>
> But I can seem to see how to change line width nor color or anything else.
>
> Where in the help is this described?
>
> thanks,
> Nasser
I do not know where is it described in the docs ... I just found it
while playing with the drawing tools.
This is how to do it:
1. Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, 2 Pi}]
2. Double click the graphic, then click the sine curve to select it.
3. Choose Graphics -> Graphics Inspector from the menu.
4. Drag the slider for thickness (now it will be easier to see color,
dashing etc.)
:-)
Szabolcs
Yasvir Tesiram
Use the 2D Graphics Inspector under the Graphics menu. I think that
while this is largely settled upon you may find slightly different
behavior between different OS's. e.g. on a Mac with three button
mouse the middle button is used to select the actual plot itself
before the thickness etc can be changed BUT I still have a beta
version here so, the full functionality may have changed and I
suspect will keep changing over time. I don't think there is anything
written on the actual Graphics Inspector GUI itself, probably because
1. it's self explanatory and 2. the underlying graphics options
controlling plots are already well documented, e.g. see help on
Thickness etc.
Cheers
Yas
On May 22, 2007, at 1:38 AM, Nasser Abbasi wrote:
>
> "Szabolcs" <szho...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:f2rr94$a2r$1...@smc.vnet.net...
>> scien...@libero.it wrote:
>
> ...
>
>>
>> The big improvement in the version interface 6 is the interactive
>> graphics. Now you can click on a plot and set line width, colour etc.
>> interactively.
>
ragfield
> "Szabolcs" <szhor...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:f2rr94$a2r$1...@smc.vnet.net...
>
> > science2...@libero.it wrote:
>
> ...
>
>
>
> > The big improvement in the version interface 6 is the interactive
> > graphics. Now you can click on a plot and set line width, colour etc.
> > interactively.
>
>
> I can click on the plot to select it, then double click on it to move it,
> and even modify the actual curve plotted with the mouse.
>
> But I can seem to see how to change line width nor color or anything else.
Choose from the menubar: Graphics > Graphics Inspector
-Rob
Helen Read
Use the Graphics Inspector and/or the Drawing Tools, both of which can
be found on the Graphics menu.
> Where in the help is this described?
From the home page of the Documentation Center, go to Drawing &
Interactivity (it's listed under Visualization and Graphics). From there
you can find a tutorial Editing Mathematica Graphics.
--
Helen Read
University of Vermont
Bill Rowe
>"Szabolcs" <szho...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:f2rr94$a2r$1...@smc.vnet.net...
>>scien...@libero.it wrote:
>>The big improvement in the version interface 6 is the interactive
>>graphics. Now you can click on a plot and set line width, colour
>>etc. interactively.
>How??
>I can click on the plot to select it, then double click on it to
>move it, and even modify the actual curve plotted with the mouse.
>But I can seem to see how to change line width nor color or anything
>else.
Go to the menu item Graphics->Graphics Inspector to open 2D
Graphics Inspector window.
Double click on the graphic element you want to change
Drag the appropriate sliders in the Graphics Inspector window to
whatever value you like
Click somewhere in the notebook with the graphic to see the
changes you've made
>Where in the help is this described?
Search on
tutorial/IntroductionToInteractiveGraphics
in the Documentation Center
--
To reply via email subtract one hundred and four