Re: Re: CellChangeTimes?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg105830] Re: [mg105829] Re: CellChangeTimes?
- From: "David Park" <djmpark at comcast.net>
- Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:30:03 -0500 (EST)
- References: <hgidat$o2q$1@smc.vnet.net> <14650132.1261312599116.JavaMail.root@n11>
While it may be true that regular Mathematica users won't generally have to look much at the underlying cell expression, there are a number of cases where it is worthwhile. I think these rise a little above the "hacking" level. Underlying cell expressions are useful when you want to control the "look and feel" of a notebook, but not so much for "doing mathematics". The most common case is when you want to change options for cells. A case of this is adding ShowGroupOpener -> True to various section headers. Another useful place to work with the cell expressions is in designing style sheets. Cell characteristics are almost all controlled by options and it just seems to me to be more convenient to see them all listed in one place instead of working from the Format menu. Another useful place is in working with Workbench/DocuTools. The whole thing is a little esoteric and one can get a better idea of what is going on by looking at the underlying expressions in various linking constructs. Sometimes you can copy existing cells and then edit the underlying expression to obtain what you want. David Park djmpark at comcast.net http://home.comcast.net/~djmpark/ From: magma [mailto:maderri2 at gmail.com] I am more interested in knowing why you seem to be using Show Expression so often that this feature bothers you? I personally use it veeery rarely. Last time a few hours ago to answer a post here relating to the special characters palette. I think I used it several months ago the prior time. Show Expression has a very complex output and IMO should only be used by "hackers" and not regular Mathematica users. going so low level is not too time efficient for regular users. If one wants to discover something very special, it is faster to ask here in MathGroup. If you want to see how things work internally (up to a certain level), FullForm should be enough for regular Mathematica users (that is anybody who is not a computer scientist). So: why do you use Show Expression so often to be bothered by CellChangeTimes ?