Re: A new graphic user interface
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg111636] Re: A new graphic user interface
- From: telefunkenvf14 <rgorka at gmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 07:22:11 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <i3gpp1$2v0$1@smc.vnet.net> <i3jc57$d03$1@smc.vnet.net>
On Aug 7, 5:22 am, Mihail <macherkass... at gmail.com> wrote: > On Aug 6, 2:56 pm, Murray Eisenberg <mur... at math.umass.edu> wrote: > > > > > What iwould you want in the Mathematica front end that could be more > > user-friendly? In what ways do you find it currently unfriendly? > > > What has been added to the front end over several versions is absolutel= y > > awesome. > > > But perhaps you're thinking of such things as automatic backup, or > > multiple-level undo and redo. > > > On 8/5/2010 7:00 AM, Mihail wrote: > > > > Will a graphic user interface be more friendly in new version of > > > Mathematica? > > > -- > > Murray Eisenberg mur... at math.um= as= > s.edu > > Mathematics & Statistics Dept. > > Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 413 549-1020 (H) > > University of Massachusetts 413 545-2859= (= > W) > > 710 North Pleasant Street fax 413 545-1801 > > Amherst, MA 01003-9305 > > Yes, I think of such things as automatic backup, or multiple-level > undo and redo. > I would like to see more powerful organization of palettes and > notebooks. Organization of palettes may be look like the ribbon > interface in MS Office 2007. Organization of notebooks may be look > like tabs in Google Chrome or Firefox. Notebooks and palettes will be > able to dock and undock. The code editor will be able to highlight > brackets. The highlighting looks like in Workbench 2. The selection of > code works like the selection for normal text without expansion. The > expansion appears when I try deselect the selection. The 'complete > selection' works like in such manner: > 1) I type something for example 'ListL' . > 2) I press Ctrl+K (complete selection). > 3) I continue type and 'complete selection list' interactive suggests > an end of word. > The powerful tooltip appears when I type the function arguments and > powerful 'complete selection list' appears for function arguments. Besides the eye candy I mentioned above, I happen to really like the overall Mathematica interface. I think the ribbon would be a space-waster and would serve only to confuse new users about the nature of Mathematica (the underlying markup structure of the .nb files, etc.) One related example, which I believe emphasizes my point: When students jump into using palettes they're able to create a pile of poo rather quickly----a pile they cannot possibly debug due to the fact they've never absorbed 'everything is an expression'. Clinging to the pointy-clicky route also makes the documentation seem very foreign to new users. I have nothing against using palettes, but things need to be learned in proper order. In this regard, trying to make the interface more like MS Word will, in the long run, hurt new users and the reputation of the software. Here are a few thoughts/suggestions (my prezi suggestion is a pipe dream...): 1. DPI scaling in Windows is a mess. (for many different pieces of software, not just Mathematica) A lot of programs are locked into the 96 DPI world. My new laptop is 1920x1080, which looks great, except that fonts become way too small in Mathematica. To compensate for this I have adjusted the default Magnification to 1.5----as a result, the notebooks look PERFECT, but the documentation center now looks like CRAP (distorted). Adjusting the system wide Windows DPI scaling causes similar problems. Suggestion: could WRI just make it so users can 'run through' the documentation center, re-evaluating all the examples and saving the output to the doc center? I can easily imagine this would be problematic. Regardless, a suggestion. 2. Stylesheets need to be easier to create and alter (without fear that your going to screw something up---this is frustrating and extra confusing for new users.) 3. I'm not totally in favor of integrating backup features. I can imagine cases where this would cause problems, slow-downs and crashes, especially if notebooks are large. Perhaps a backup feature that ignores output cells would work? The irony is that as you get better at Mathematica you don't code as much notebook crashing garbage, making backups redundant. (haha) Of course this doesn't comfort new users... I use Microsoft LiveSync to sync my notebooks across machines, and along with regular system backups, this seems to be enough. 4. While I've also REALLY grown to love the documentation materials (especially compared to other languages!!), I do wish there were a way WRI could somehow include a way for users to contribute to it and customize it. (i) When a user comes across a documentation example they find confusing, it would be nice if there were small/discrete button that linked to additional explanations provided by the community. This would be a way to document 'gotchas' and points of confusion amongst users---and would surely be useful summary info that WRI could use to improve the product. (ii) I'd also like to be able to bookmark locations in the documentation and save scraps of customized code ideas, tagged to those bookmarks. I know this would cut down on the mountain of scrap notebooks I have!! 5. This isn't related to the 'graphic interface'...how about MP3 support? I understand that MP3 is actually protected intellectual property, and so if WRI included MP3 i/o in the product then we'd all have to pay more. The way around this is for WRI to show the user community some detailed examples of how to link to open source codecs, such as FFMpeg. Then users could simply add the functionality themselves. (If anyone is interested, I have a collection of potentially useful code; most is C and C++, both of which I'm still learning. -RG