front end complaint (ui design flaw?)
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg55539] front end complaint (ui design flaw?)
- From: Chris Chiasson <chris.chiasson at gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 03:16:45 -0500 (EST)
- Reply-to: Chris Chiasson <chris.chiasson at gmail.com>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Example workflow: Type an expression containing a comma into an input cell, say: mydata[run1,paramB] Decide that the name of the expression should be different, perhaps to differentiate it from some other data. Imagine that this same expression occurs twenty times in the remainder of the notebook. Decide that the find/replace command in the notebook should be useful here. Highlight the text, hit ctrl+c. Use the keyboard to move the cursor to a position above the cell. Hit ctrl+f. Erase whatever may be in the find box. Hit shift+insert to paste the expression. Note that the expression has a space after the comma (probably for readability when pasting to another application). Guess what? The find command doesn't work because the pasted expression does not match the copied expression. eg mydata[run1,paramB] =!= mydata[run1, paramB] Lets continue.... Suppose that the user had not moved the cursor after the copy. Pressing the find button will "work" because the copied text is already selected. Let's suppose that the user also pastes the expression into the replace cell and modifies it. After that, perhaps the user hits "Replace All"... The first selection (the one that was copied) will be replaced, but none of the other ones in the notebook will be replaced. I think you could see how this can out of hand... At this point, the first occurrence of mydata[run1,paramB] might be changed to mydata[run1, paramB,typeC], while all other occurrences are unchanged. Solution? I dunno. A quick hack would be to check the target of the paste (if that's possible). If the target is the find box, then the paste should be the exact text. me = Mathematic 5.0 on Windows Regards, -- Chris Chiasson Kettering University Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student 1 810 265 3161
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: front end complaint (ui design flaw?)
- From: DrBob <drbob@bigfoot.com>
- Re: front end complaint (ui design flaw?)