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Re: The side-effects of mixing TraditionalForm inside

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg110787] Re: The side-effects of mixing TraditionalForm inside
  • From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
  • Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 05:03:05 -0400 (EDT)
  • Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
  • References: <i0saj2$eno$1@smc.vnet.net> <201007060115.VAA20396@smc.vnet.net>
  • Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu

Actually, I think here the default -- to have the More Information group 
closed -- is quite reasonable. So that what you see is the brief 
Information output cell near the top and the EXAMPLES group initially open.

I've spent a lot of time watching Mathematica beginners learn, and 
there's no question that most of them instinctively head first for 
examples and only afterward (if at all) looking for an actual description.

If you want to open all the closed groups in _any_ window, including a 
window inside the Help Browser, after being sure that window has the 
focus, you can do it with the menu:

   Edit > Select All
   Cell > Grouping > Open All Subgroups

And the menu items will show you which keyboard shortcuts to use on your 
platform.

On 7/5/2010 9:15 PM, AES wrote:
> In article<i0saj2$eno$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
>   "Nasser M. Abbasi"<nma at 12000.org>  wrote:
>
>>
>> My lesson of the day: do not use TraditionalForm inside expressions.
>>
>
> Another example of what some of us call a "gotcha".
>
> To its credit, Wolfram gives a kind of semi-explicit warning about this
> particular gotcha as the first item in the "More Information" cell that
> comes right after the initial short command summary in the
> "ref/TraditionalForm" Help window.  But:
>
> 1)  Your wording is a lot more terse, and will be much clearer and more
> helpful for novice users, than Wolfram's.
>
> 2)  And, this More Information cell is, for some reason, closed by
> default when the ref/TraditionalForm window is opened.
>
> I can get from a notebook cell to a ref/Xxxx Help window (and back)
> purely by keyboard commands on my extended Mac keyboard -- but I don't
> know how to then open the More Information cells except by going to the
> mouse and futzing with it.
>
> Seems to me the default for the More Information cells ought to be that
> they're open when any ref/Xxxx window is opened.  Any way to set that
> default for all ref/Xxxx (and similar) windows?
>
> (And while we're at it, any keyboard way to open _all_ the subsequent
> closed section-heading cells in a ref/Xxxx window at once, so that
> powerful Find or Search capabilities could be used in some of these very
> lengthy Help windows?)
>

-- 
Murray Eisenberg                     murray at math.umass.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


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