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Re: Are configuration & UI better in 4.2?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg36828] Re: Are configuration & UI better in 4.2?
• From: Jens-Peer Kuska <kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de>
• Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 04:34:22 -0400 (EDT)
• Organization: Universitaet Leipzig
• References: <an14r5$ieq$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Reply-to: kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Hi,

I can't understand your criticism. Open a terminal window
and type 

>math

the delete key work perfect, due to your terminal settings and
a command line is the most modern interface I can imagine.
It still comes with Mathematica 4.2 and is perfect as before.

Regards
  Jens

fjolsvit wrote:
> 
> I have spent far more time attempting to get Mathematica configured than I
> have using it.  I've found the the product to be exceptionally difficult to
> configure.  My platform is SuSE Linux on Intel.
> 
> As an example, I spent several hours trying to figure out how to tell Mathematica to
> understand the delete key in the way most contemporary systems understand
> it.  I wanted to avoid modifying system configuration files such as:
> /usr/local/mathematica/SystemFiles/FrontEnd/TextResources/KeyEventTranslations.tr
> 
> I expected to be able to change something in my own ~/.Mathematic directory,
> but I could not figure out an obvious way to affect this modification. I
> want to adjust the font size used in the widgets, but again, I see no
> ovbious means of modifying these attributes.  I suspect it can be
> accomplished by modifying the ~/.Mathematica/4.1/FrontEnd/init.m.  Perhaps
> to an experienced Mathematica user, the syntax and semantics of this file are
> obvious.  They aren't to me.
> 
> I also find the overall look & feel of the interface to be archaic.  I
> understand that Mathematica 4.1 was written years ago, and much of the desktops for
> Unix which exist today did not exist when it was written.  I should be
> receiving Mathematica 4.2 in a few days, so perhaps these concerns will prove
> undounded.  Something tells me that not a lot has changed in this respect.
> 
> What have others observed?