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Re: Re: How do I pick out the expression under a radical?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg36800] Re: [mg36788] Re: How do I pick out the expression under a radical?
  • From: Murray Eisenberg <murraye at attbi.com>
  • Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 04:56:56 -0400 (EDT)
  • Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
  • References: <akf64b$bgc$1@smc.vnet.net> <200209250551.BAA05394@smc.vnet.net>
  • Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

I don't understand the problem.  Say I enter the 2D form for the 
reciprocal of the square root of a^2 + b^2, but I enter it in Standard 
Form (i.e., using the Control key with / to form the fraction, and the 
Control key with 2 to get the square root symbol).

If then I click anywhere within the subexpression inside the square 
root, then with 2 to three clicks the entire expression under the square 
root will be highlighted.  I can then do a copy-and-paste to put that 
into any cell, in the usual way -- with keyboard key combinations, 
right-click context menu, or Mathematica Edit menu.

Isn't that "GUI" enough?

Would you REALLY want to be able to DRAG the highlighted expression to a 
new place?  Think of how much of a mess this could cause through 
inadvertent movement of the mouse after highlighting some subexpression. 
   In fact, I hate Microsoft Word's doing just that!

Steve Gray wrote:
> "Steve Beach" <asb4 at psu.edu> wrote in message
> news:akf64b$bgc$1 at smc.vnet.net...
> 
>>I'm a poor physicist trying to figure out how to sort out the
>>"physical" from the "non-physical" solutions to a problem.  To do
>>that, I need to be able to look at an expression and pick out a
>>subexpression, the part under the radical.
> 
> 
> GRAY:
>     This points up the need, which I've been aware of for years, to be
> able to select any part of an expression and drag it to a new line for
> further processing. Mathematica and the other CAS I'm familiar with are still
> pretty much stuck with a command line interface. They need a true
> GUI with extensive interaction.
>     When I can see on the screen exactly what I want to do, why
> should I have to type a bunch of stuff in to access what I want?
>     Maybe we'll see this in version 5? 6? Never?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
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
Amherst, MA 01375



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