Re: Yet another Mathematica docs whopper
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg47123] Re: Yet another Mathematica docs whopper
- From: Paul Abbott <paul at physics.uwa.edu.au>
- Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 03:56:30 -0500 (EST)
- Organization: The University of Western Australia
- References: <c3udt9$9pd$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
In article <c3udt9$9pd$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
J Krugman <jkrugman at yahbitoo.com> wrote:
> I've posted about the poor quality of Mathematica's documentation
> before, and received several e-mails challenging my claim that this
> documentation is awash in errors and woefully incomplete. Well,
> for those who doubt, here's the latest example I just bumped into:
>
> In[1]:= ??AspectRatio
> AspectRatio is an option for Show and related functions which specifies the
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> ratio of height to width for a plot.
>
> Attributes[AspectRatio] = {Protected}
>
> In[2]:= SetOptions[Show, AspectRatio->Automatic];
>
> SetOptions::optnf: AspectRatio is not a known option for Show.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Faced with this sort of nonsense, what is a user to do?
Interesting example -- and a little subtle because, in fact, both
statements are true! If you enter
Options[Show]
you will see that it has no built-in options. However,
Show[Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, 2 Pi}], AspectRatio -> Automatic]
does work. (Since Show has no options, I assume that the option must be
getting passed to the object produced by the Plot command, which in this
case is a -Graphics- object).
To set AspectRatio->Automatic for all Plots, one can do
SetOptions[Plot, AspectRatio -> Automatic]
Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, 2 Pi}]
Similarly, to set it for Graphics (and to add a frame)
SetOptions[Graphics, AspectRatio -> Automatic, Frame -> True]
Show[Graphics[Point /@ Table[Random[], {100}, {2}]]]
> I am furious, because I spend an unreasonable amount of time
> resolving inadequacies like this one in the Mathematica documentation.
> Considering the exorbitant sum we paid for Mathematica, I expect
> something much better documented than this.
Agreed -- but the documentation of Mathematica is already overwhelmingly
large ...
Cheers,
Paul
--
Paul Abbott Phone: +61 8 9380 2734
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