Re: Clever Tricky Solutions
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg94208] Re: Clever Tricky Solutions
- From: congruentialuminaire at yahoo.com
- Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2008 05:43:19 -0500 (EST)
- References: <27271771.1228394784179.JavaMail.root@m02> <ghavpg$o9j$1@smc.vnet.net>
OK Helen:
I do vaguely remember something about this. Of course, your students
can use SetOptions[Plot, PlotRange->All] or the like.
But what is not clear to me is:
- both V5.2 and V6 evaluate Options[Plot,PlotRange] to Automatic. So
it seems that the default PlotRange default itself has *not* changed;
just the meaning of the default [i.e. Automatic] is different now!?!
- is it possible to "ask" the Plot command what range it picked
[programmatically] so I can annotate the graph with this information
[maybe in a caption]?
Regards..
Roger Williams
Franklin Laboratory
On Dec 6, 4:56 pm, Helen Read <h... at together.net> wrote:
> <snipped/>
>
> This was discussed here at length when v6 came out last year. WRI
> changed the default behavior of Show beginning with 6.0, because,
> according to them, with the various new graphics options (Filling, etc.)
> introduced in v6, it "often" does not make sense to combine the
> PlotRanges of the individual graphics. So instead, Show now uses the
> PlotRange from the first graphic by default. The v7 documentation for
> Show discusses this under "Possible Issues" with an example illustrating
> that "Show uses options from the first graphic". It suggests using
> PlotRange->All to see the entire plot. However, PlotRange->All often
> gives terrible results, so I tell my students to always set
> PlotRange->Automatic in Show, which makes it behave the way it did
> pre-v6. They often forget to do this, though, and don't understand why
> their plots are cut off.
>
> I greatly dislike this behavior, as I virtually *never* want the
> PlotRange from the first plot. Rather, I want the PlotRanges combined
> automatically by default, as Show did prior to v6. On the rare occasion
> where I need something else, I can always specify the PlotRange
> explicitly. I think it would make a lot more sense to have
> PlotRange->Automatic the default in Show, with some way to set it to use
> the PlotRange from the 1st graphic or the 2nd etc. if you need to.
> Something like PlotRange->{1} to get the PlotRange from the first
> graphic, or whatever.
>
> SetOptions[Show, PlotRange -> Automatic] does not even work, BTW. You
> get an error that "PlotRange is not an option for Show". So my students
> and I are stuck having to type in PlotRange->Automatic about 99% of the
> time when we use Show. If Automatic was still the default, we would
> rarely have to specify a PlotRange in Show.
>
> --
> Helen Read
> University of Vermont