Defining new Forms
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg20292] Defining new Forms
- From: Eckhard Hennig <hennig at itwm.uni-kl.de>
- Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 03:39:30 -0400
- Organization: ITWM
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi, I would greatly appreciate some help on the following problem with
Mathematica 3.0's expression formatting functionality. Assume that we have
objects of the form
LargeObject[lst, stuff]
where "lst" is a (usually large) list of user data and "stuff" denotes some
internal information, for instance
lst = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
and
stuff = {opt1 -> val1, opt2->val2} .
To abbreviate the display, I modified the Format/MakeBoxes rules for
LargeObjects such that StandardForm and OutputForm return this:
In[1]:= obj = LargeObject[lst, stuff]
Out[1]= - LargeObject -
So far, no problem. Now, I also want to be able to display a LargeObject
such that the user data "lst" is shown in its natural form, i.e. as a list
in StandardForm(!), using a new format type "ListForm" as illustrated below.
In[2]:= obj // ListForm
Out[2]//ListForm= {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
Although I experimented a lot with formatting rules, I was not able to
produce exactly what I want. The definition
Format[ListForm[LargeObject[a_,b_]]] := a
returns the list but without the //ListForm suffix in the cell label,
whereas the definition
Format[LargeObject[a_,b_], ListForm] := a
has no effect at all. However, if *both* Format definitions are executed, I
get both the list output and a correct cell label. Unfortunately, this
causes the output to be printed in OutputForm and not in StandardForm, which
makes selecting the output with the mouse impossible.
Does anyone have an idea how to apply Format and/or MakeBoxes to make the
command
obj // ListForm
produce the correct output in StandardForm involving RowBoxes etc.?
-- Eckhard
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Dipl.-Ing. Eckhard Hennig mailto:hennig at itwm.uni-kl.de
Institut fuer Techno- und Wirtschaftsmathematik e.V. (ITWM)
Erwin-Schroedinger-Strasse, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
Voice: +49-(0)631-205-3126 Fax: +49-(0)631-205-4139
http://www.itwm.uni-kl.de/as/employees/hennig.html
ITWM - Makers of Analog Insydes for Mathematica
http://www.itwm.uni-kl.de/as/products/ai
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