Re: fellow authors
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg92561] Re: fellow authors
- From: pajake <jtrexel at ix.netcom.com>
- Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 06:06:10 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <gbulcp$l4v$1@smc.vnet.net> <gc4sr7$eum$1@smc.vnet.net>
Thanks David What I was trying to say, is that the only way that I know, is to make each chapter into a note book document. Then some how combine the notebooks into a book. But from what I read with Author tools, this way presents problems such as references (and I have many of them), hyper links, table of contents and index. The Author tools sounds like it puts it all together. All of this sounds great, but then I found out that it will not work with version 6. The final book would be like a regular text book, except it will have a CD of the book inside it. This way the students or researchers will not have to type in the code. They can just load in what ever note book or what ever I use, and work with it. I always taught my students, from freshmen to grad, to play with the code. This is why I want to include my own work on a CD. I hated in the 60's to rewrite the Fortran code that was in a book. I ended up with more mistakes that if I typed it my self, but it was what I had to do then. Even though my book is for upper grad. students and post grad, I still think the CD would be of benefit to them. I have never tried the workbench that you mentioned. WRI will not send me a CD of it. I cannot down load it because I only have a dial up connection, and it would take for ever to get it. Reason for dial up, disabled and cannot afford high speed. What is the Presentations package? You are so right about the input and output statements. This is just one more reason that I am stuck with what to do. My book is developing into a 300 - 400 page book. So far I have over a 100 pages not including the drawings and diagrams. It would be nice to start to set the actual book up, so that I will not have to go back and redo everything in another format. I have received one other email, and that prof. used Word for his format. Even though it was all on the use of Mathematica. This has really got me confused. I can transfer Mathematica to word, but it does not look the way I want it to. I have many animations in the book, and when you transfer them they become static. I guess this brings me back to the beginning of the circle. I need a Mathematical environment. Thanks again Jake David Park wrote: > Do you mean that the book will be in the form of Mathematica notebooks and > not printed in static form? In that case you can do wonderful things because > of all the graphical and dynamic capabilities of Mathematica. > > I think that the proper tool will be Wolfram Workbench - but unfortunately > it is not yet in shape for this purpose. Any book will probably have enough > new routines to warrant one or more packages that go with the book. Then a > 'book project' would consist of the packages, one or more folders that > contained all the book notebooks (perhaps with their own style sheet) and > documentation. The documentation would not only link to the package function > pages, but also to the set of book notebooks and the notebooks could link > back to the rest of the documentation. The first page of the documentation > would probably be a table of contents to the book, and also links to any > package documentation. But all of this was very ragged and not basically > working in the last Workbench. There is also a problem when some of the > packages are loaded with a stub package using DeclarePackage statements. I > think that WRI is aware of the problems and possibilities but we just have > to wait and see what gets implemented. > > If this kind of structure were implemented in Workbench, then it could be > used not only for books, but would also be convenient for college courses, > research projects, consulting projects and one's own self-study of existing > books or topics. > > One of the objectives I have for the Presentations package is to be able to > write notebooks that look much more like regular textbooks or research > papers. Some of the features it has are: routines to keep a set of > references in whatever style you want; keeping automatically numbered key > equations; writing fairly general ellipses expressions and converting them > to regular Mathematica statements; formatting 'page' displays that hide the > Mathematica specifications and concentrate on the subject matter; gathering > multiple-page calculations, proofs and derivations into compact spaces that > show the structure of the derivation and in which pages can be individually > displayed or launched in separate windows; the implementation of sidebar > notebooks. If you wish, you can write notebooks that show no Input/Output > statements at all. How many Input/Output statements do you see in regular > textbooks? > > For those who want to see an example of this style I have a PDF version of a > notebook on a derivation of the area swept out by the focal angle in an > ellipse using a very nice method presented by David Cantrell. The notebook > goes all the way from the definition of an ellipse to plotting orbits around > the sun and everything is done actively with Mathematica. If you wish a copy > just send me an email. Of course, the PDF doesn't have the active dynamic > capabilities that the notebook has. > > >