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Re: Re: SetOptions[TableForm] doesn't seem to work?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg89308] Re: [mg89294] Re: SetOptions[TableForm] doesn't seem to work?
• From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
• Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 00:42:48 -0400 (EDT)
• Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
• References: <g20b54$g10$1@smc.vnet.net> <g22to5$ik3$1@smc.vnet.net> <200806040936.FAA18271@smc.vnet.net>
• Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu

But Grid could serve as readily as TableForm for the simple, quick, 
terse, form.  For example,

   Table[Cos[a t] Sin[b t], {a, 1, 3}, {b, 1, 2}] // Grid

instead of:

   Table[Cos[a t] Sin[b t], {a, 1, 3}, {b, 1, 2}] // TableForm

And if you want the spacing more to your liking, with Grid use Spacings. 
   (Getting rules with Grid, via the Frame option, is not so simple.)

AES wrote:
> Thanks for replies from David Park and Helen Read, and I'll set to work 
> learning Grid.
> 
> But to respond in defense of TableForm, there are many occasions when 
> one is not formatting material for printing or distribution, instead one 
> is doing an initial analysis and just wants to get a quick one-shot 
> picture of how some expression is going to behave, or test some function 
> one is coding.
> 
> In that case, what could be simpler, quicker, terser, and easier to 
> remember than
> 
>    Table[---table contents---]  //  TableForm
> 
> Don't need to mess with headings, 'cause I know what I'm putting in the 
> table; don't need to make it look nice, 'cause I'm not printing it 
> anyway; can instantly change the iterator and reevaluate if I need to 
> see what the expression does over some wider range or narrower subrange; 
> can see if expression blows up at end points or intermediate points, 
> *without* losing intermediate points. 
> 
> And while we're on the subject of how making things better makes them 
> worse:
> 
> 1)  I believe default horizontal spacing for Table used to be 2 or 3 
> spaces, which was enough to make most tables readable.  Now it's been 
> set to just one space, which is not.  One can see some logic for making 
> the default the minimum, I guess, but I think that was a bad design 
> change.
> 
> 2)  I believe the default for TableHeadings used to be no rules under 
> headings; now default is a rule, and it's too tightly spaced, looks ugly 
> -- and as far as I can tell would involve deep-level messing with 
> styles, not just options, to change this default.
> 

-- 
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            fax   413 545-1801
Amherst, MA 01003-9305

• References:
  • Re: SetOptions[TableForm] doesn't seem to work?
    • From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu>