Re: Getting a pure text widget?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg61380] Re: Getting a pure text widget?
- From: "ragfield" <ragfield at gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 02:29:48 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <disln4$mj7$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
> The literature for MathLink suggests that I could create my own GUI for > Mathematica using MathLink. I have not been able to convince myself this > is really true by looking over the API. For example, is there a way to get > a "pure" text widget? By text widget, I mean - in terms of X - an X window > that presents the content of a Mathematica notebook without any menubar, > toolbar, scrollbar, statusbar, etc. ... > Are my perceptions in error here? MathLink is a library that can be used to transmit Mathematica expressions from one application to another, or even from one application to itself. It does not encompass all of Mathematica's functionality (i.e. it does not perform computations, and it does not allow for embedding of Mathematica notebook content inside other applications). That having been said, it is entirely possible to create a GUI application to communicate with the Mathematica Kernel via MathLink. It would be the responsibility of such an application to completely manage the user interface and interaction between that interface and the Mathematica Kernel via MathLink. This is exactly what the Mathematica FrontEnd does. It would be completely straightforward for a C++ developer to create an application to take plain text input from a user, evaluate it in the Mathematica Kernel, then display plain text results. Such an application would have limited utility though. It would be considerably more difficult to write from scratch graphics rendering capabilities and sophisticated typesetting that is already available in the Mathematica FrontEnd. I estimate it would take dozens of developers around 17 years to complete such a task ;) -Rob