Re: my wish list for Mathematica next major version
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg59951] Re: my wish list for Mathematica next major version
- From: AES <siegman at stanford.edu>
- Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 04:53:45 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Stanford University
- References: <dek750$a0a$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
In article <dek750$a0a$1 at smc.vnet.net>, "Nasser Abbasi" <nma at 12000.org> wrote: > > Hello; > > I thought I'll share some of the things I wish Mathematica could have, > may be someone from Wolfram company will listen. > > 1. A real, good, easy to use, GUI based debugger. With break points, > line numbers, full source code tracing, stack frame display (call > history), step/in/out, etc.. This is for me the most important item to > have. Debugging Mathematica code can be a pain due to lack of a good > debugger. > > 2. Ability to build graphics user interfaces, to allow one to make it > easier to interface to their Mathematica applications. This should > have a wizard type graphic interface builder to make it easy and fast > to build UI's. With callbacks. > > 4. A package manager. GUI based. Easy to use. To allow one to easily > add and remove packages, manage packages, etc... > > 5. Improve the graphics to allow one to much easily manipulate the > plots with the mouse, rotate, zoom, modify the plot attributes etc... > Currently plots are static, even though Mathematica plots are the best > I've seen. RealTime3D just does not do it. As a meta-response to these requests, and many other similar ones (for example, "4.1. A palette manager, GUI based"), one attractive solution could be a user-customizable toolbar across the top of the screen or the top of the noteook window, as found in many other Mac programs (Eudora, Quicken, others). The concept would be that users could drag icons into this toolbar which, when clicked, would open or provide quick access to many user-selected special capabilities and utilities. I suppose a toolbar is just, in essence, a kind of "linear palette", and so this same function could be replaced within the Mathematica platform-independent model by a "Palettes Palette" which could open and close a lot of other palettes or widget-like capabilities on demand. (Does a model for such already exist somewhere?) For me, in any case, I personally find toolbars significantly faster and easier to use than menus, notably because the available capabilities are all in view, and much less less invasive of screen real estate than a palette. Is it possible to add "tooltips" to a Mathematica palette?