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Re: Documentation Center (v6): do-it-yourself Mathematica Book

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg79808] Re: Documentation Center (v6): do-it-yourself Mathematica Book
• From: David Bailey <dave at Remove_Thisdbailey.co.uk>
• Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 04:52:15 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <f91jf0$6da$1@smc.vnet.net>

thomas wrote:
> Many users on this discussion group have complained about the absence
> of "The Mathematica Book" in the new Documentation Center; mainly
> because of a missing linear introductory text of Mathematica which was
> present in the old Help system.
> 
> I completely agree. However, I noticed that the various tutorial files
> in the Documentation center contain the text of "The Book". What is
> really missing is the outline. So I decided to build my own do-it-
> yourself version of the book. It turned out to be quite simple, thanks
> to the ingenious naming rules of the tutorial files (all main chapter
> TOC files end with "...Overview.nb".)
> 
> The following code opens a new notebook, and prints a collection of
> hyperlinks to Documentation Center tutorials, laid out in the order of
> the good old Mathematica book. Simply execute the code and save the
> notebook for your own use. There are 11 chapters that I could not find
> in "The Mathematica Book" of the v5.2 Help system, I integrated them
> in an order that seemed most appropriate to me. The are marked by
> "New: ".
> 
> Note that this link collection does not contain links to all
> tutorials. For example, no links to the "Manipulate" tutorials exist.
> Neither are the packages represented.
> 
> Also be warned that the code opens help files to extract hyperlinks
> for incorporation in "The Book", and closes them again. Lots of
> windows appearing and disappearing on the screen. There will also be
> warnings and a "beeps" popping up because of a mismatch in cell
> styles, which you can ignore. Everything works fine despite the
> mismatch. At the end, just close the "Why the beep" dialog box.
> 
> Here is the code that you need to execute to build your own book in
> v6.0.x:
> 
> 

This works and looks very, very useful!

David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk