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Re: mathematica player: can users input a file?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg75857] Re: [mg75669] mathematica player: can users input a file?
  • From: John Fultz <jfultz at wolfram.com>
  • Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 03:02:45 -0400 (EDT)
  • Reply-to: jfultz at wolfram.com

Let me first define a few terms, and then I can answer your questions...

* A "playable" notebook is a notebook whose dynamic content can be evaluated in 
the kernel.  By convention, such notebooks use the new filename extension .nbp.
* A "signed" notebook is notebook file which has been processed and signed by 
Wolfram Research. The signature authorizes certain capabilities for the 
notebook, one of which is to make it playable.

Right now, there is only one way for a user to get a notebook signed so that
it's playable within Player, and that is to submit a demonstration to 
demonstrations.wolfram.com. However, Wolfram Research is keenly aware that the 
ability to use a free or low-cost product to play dynamic content is something 
users are really interested in doing. We're developing further products and
services in that direction right now, but I can't yet be more specific than
that.

If you're hoping to do something before we finish developing our products in
this arena, you can contact partnerships at wolfram.com with your ideas to see if 
something can be worked out more quickly.

As for the technical limitations of the free player, here's a summary of it's 
capabilities:

* It can open and display any notebook.
* It can render Dynamic content in playable notebooks.
* It fully supports functions which access our servers (such as 
AstronomicalData, CountryData, etc.) when used as part of the Dynamic content of 
a playable notebook
* It supports full interaction of all controls in playable notebooks except for 
InputFields.
* It supports typing into Number-type InputFields, but not other InputFields.
* Otherwise, it supports no keyboard interactions in notebooks.
* It does not include support for most of the import/export formats.

Sincerely,
 
John Fultz
jfultz at wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.

On Tue, 8 May 2007 05:53:11 -0400 (EDT), wpb wrote:
> I'm interested in distributing a mathematica notebook to users who may
> not have mathematica but who may want to download the free player.
>
> For this to be worthwhile, users need to be able to input their own file
> (with numbers) into the notebook. Is this possible?
> I suppose perhaps not, as it might provide a backdoor for executing code.
>
> Alternatively, can users input numbers by hand? From the demonstrations
> it seems only drop down menus are possible.
>
> Thanks, wb




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