Questions relating to the dynamic family of functions in Mathematica, such as Dynamic, DynamicModule and Manipulate.
81
votes
1answer
12k views
Mathematica Minecraft
Some time ago I asked myself: with all these great graphics and interactive capabilities of Mathematica, what kinds of 3D games can be implemented in it? And the answer which came to mind is ...
48
votes
2answers
2k views
How to manipulate 2D plots?
When it comes to visual analysis, large datasets or data with intricate internal details often makes plotting in 2D useless, as the outcome is either just a fraction of the full dataset, or no details ...
35
votes
3answers
551 views
How can I set up a versioning system within a notebook?
Since the Frontend crashes a lot, for important work it would be nice to have the notebook automatically branch and save itself every so many minutes.
For instance, commands like ...
25
votes
9answers
1k views
How to create animated snowfall?
Well, the title is self-explanatory. What sorts of snowfall can we generate using Mathematica? There are two options I suggest to consider:
1) Continuous GIF animations with smallest possible number ...
24
votes
1answer
222 views
Quickly look-up usages, options and attributes of symbols
When I'm writing code in the front-end, I find myself very often looking up the list of options of a symbol over and over again in the documentation center. In most cases you find there a list of ...
23
votes
3answers
1k views
How to create a progress bar?
I would like to create a progress bar tool that allows me to see how my computations are going.
I found answers to this question on many sites, I even found a package for it ( ...
21
votes
4answers
599 views
Question about collections of custom GUI controls for Mathematica
Background: I have only recently begun programming GUIs in Mathematica, so I have a continuous need for custom controls. I needed a scrollable list control and with the help of Google I found a ...
19
votes
2answers
489 views
What are the most common (usual) ways to make palettes with non-trivial functionality?
What are the best (most robust and most convenient) ways to create palettes that can be installed permanently (using Palettes -> Install Palette...) and are safe ...
18
votes
2answers
277 views
What is the equivalent of a prototypical Manipulate in lower level functions?
Background: In the Mathematica tutorial 'Dynamic Interactivity' I read that there is a way of developing GUIs in Mathematica that do not use Manipulate. I want to ...
18
votes
3answers
404 views
18
votes
2answers
662 views
Why animator smoothes dynamic updates, or how to make pacman drink beer
How could I make a pacman drink beer in Mathematica?
This is what I have so far
...
18
votes
0answers
75 views
How safe is the use of Block and Internal`InheritedBlock
For many questions on this site answers are given which suggest to use Block and, especially for more advanced topics, ...
17
votes
3answers
339 views
Change the color of a Locator in a Manipulate
How can I change the color of a Locator in a Manipulate? As an example, consider the following.
...
17
votes
3answers
454 views
Does Mathematica have a built-in date picker?
Does Mathematica have an interactive date input control that lets the user choose a date by browsing to a calendar view and returning the selected date as a date list? For example, something like the ...
17
votes
1answer
273 views
How can I interrupt Speak?
I want to use an event handler to stop speaking:
Speak[ExampleData[{"Text", "DonQuixoteISpanish"}]]
The only way I can stop this is by restarting mathematica!
17
votes
1answer
161 views
“With” as part of the “Dynamic Interactivity Language”
I noticed that in Mathematica's Function Navigator With is listed as being part of the "Dynamic Interactivity Language".
It is not the first (or even the fourth, ...
17
votes
1answer
343 views
How can I effectively performance-profile Dynamics?
How to optimize performance-wise a complex dynamic expression (like a GUI) with lots of dynamically updated components, which require different update-frequencies?
I was hesitant to ask this question ...
17
votes
1answer
283 views
How do I find all the possible events that work with EventHandler?
The EventHandler documentation, More Information section, lists 5 mouse events:
...
16
votes
4answers
286 views
How to create Locator[] hierarchies?
I'd like to 'parent' Locators to one another, ideally organized in any arbitrary tree.
The simplest case: If I have two Locators, A and B, then moving A will move both together, but moving B will ...
16
votes
2answers
382 views
Dynamically splitting Disks with Mouseover
I've recently stumbled across this site: Koalas to the Max, and the first thought that came to my mind was "I want to recreate this with Mathematica".
As a first step I tried to create a ...
16
votes
3answers
721 views
Generating graphs interactively (GUI)
I want to create graphs interactively using a GUI. I thought of using a ClickPane[] environment. The code I have (in part borrowed from the Documentation) works ...
16
votes
3answers
297 views
How to improve this code for exploring large matrices?
What I'm actually trying to do is to elaborate this question. I'd like to use Pane with scrollbars enabled to explore large (sparse) matrices like this one:
Here ...
16
votes
1answer
364 views
How can I share objects with dynamic content with non-Mathematica users?
Often when I construct some cool Manipulate[] function, I would like to share it with others—non-Mathematica users. Some software, notably Cinderella, ...
16
votes
1answer
360 views
What is the proper method to load a Mathematica package inside a DynamicModule
I have a DynamicModule that requires loading of Mathematica packages. The usual methods do not seem to apply (...
15
votes
1answer
369 views
Mouse motion heat map - live visualization and analysis
Mouse motion heat map is an great way to study spatial attention distribution, styles of movement, reaction, etc. I am trying to design a code that visualizes such heat map. The requirements: 1) It ...
14
votes
3answers
225 views
Using Refresh[..] with TrackedSymbols
This is a very basic question, but I don't understand the following behavior. The usage to Refresh reads
represents an object whose value in a Dynamic should be ...
14
votes
4answers
183 views
How to Initiate a queued evaluation from a Dynamic GUI without using a Button
I have a Dynamic-based GUI, and one part of it will kick off a calculation that could take longer than the default 5-second dynamic timeout.
I know that ...
14
votes
3answers
276 views
Practical uses of DynamicWrapper
I am looking for practical uses of the function DynamicWrapper . I read documentation and know whatever it says. I would appreciate a clear example of a useful ...
14
votes
2answers
354 views
Documentation searches hang frequently: Anyone else dealing with this?
I've been struggling with a number of hangs, dynamic timeouts, and outright crashes when using the search/documentation center in version 9. I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling and clearing ...
14
votes
1answer
398 views
Module vs DynamicModule for a dynamic variables in a grid. || Spelling Bee
When my daughter asked me help with her spelling homework, for me the obvious thing to do was to write a Mathematica program for it.
The words:
...
14
votes
1answer
310 views
Manipulating a continuous stream of sounds
I need some audio-feedback when a locator is moved on a surface. I have the following code that produces a beep every time the dynamic controller is interacted with such that the pitch of the sound ...
13
votes
3answers
506 views
How can locators be added to the points on a 3D grid?
Here is a pared down example of some 3D data that I want to make dynamic and add locators to each set of points. Is that possible?
...
13
votes
2answers
368 views
Interactively extract points from a plot (ListPlot or SmoothDensityHistogram)
Is there a way to dynamically define a polygon on a plot (I'm working with ListPlot and SmoothDensityHistogram) to select a ...
13
votes
3answers
538 views
How can I set the view vector in a 3D scene by tracking my face's position?
Faking 3D with 2D tracking data is something that I've long wanted to implement for use with my front facing laptop camera. A first step to solving this would be dynamically setting the viewpoint ...
13
votes
4answers
284 views
Is it possible to select outliers on a graph and determine the index of the outliers?
I have a large data set of experimental data for which I have determined a theoretical fit. However, for some of the experimental data I took, there was systematic error, leading to the data deviating ...
13
votes
2answers
277 views
How can I set the speed of manipulate play button?
Can you set the speed at which a Manipulate plays when the play button is clicked?
13
votes
3answers
283 views
Creating a notebook that has cells of a certain style password protected
I am teaching students how to use Mathematica. I want to create a problem set that has cells with a certain style (probably Input or some new style that is a variant of Input) locked down so that the ...
13
votes
1answer
395 views
Unique[] symbol not properly tracked
In a nutshell, why does this work (change y and see how the value updates)
...
12
votes
2answers
224 views
How can I make an InputField[] with a proper newline/carriage return?
The return key does not work as expected in an InputField, how can I overcome this?
11
votes
3answers
285 views
Mathematica as a report generator
I would like to use Mathematica as a kind of report generator.
I'm working in a Mathematica notebook and I want to handle Mathematica like this:
1) I want to define one cell as a text cell. In this ...
11
votes
3answers
201 views
Why do buttons with ChoiceDialog freeze the front end?
Pressing the button below will freeze my front end. An unpainted white dialog box comes up, then it completely freezes, and I need to forcibly kill the front end. CPU usage stays at zero during ...
11
votes
3answers
211 views
Plot on command within DynamicModule?
Suppose I have a DynamicModule with all sorts of controls to set some parameters for a graphics object.
...
11
votes
1answer
235 views
InputField does not update correctly
By fiddling with Vitaliy's solution for a small GUI, I've come accross this particular behaviour of InputField:
...
11
votes
1answer
453 views
How to work around Mathematica hanging when showing a large SparseArray?
Note: This is fixed in 9.0.1.
In Mathematica 9, if I display any large SparseArray object in the default way (which looks something like ...
11
votes
1answer
147 views
why does a variable become real when using the second argument of Dynamic?
Version 9, on windows 7
Please compare these 2 very simple examples
Manipulate[
x,
Row[{Manipulator[Dynamic[x], {0, 10, 1/100}]}],
{{x, 1}, None}
]
and
...
10
votes
4answers
469 views
Manipulate BarChart with Mathematica
In the following minimal working example:
Manipulate[BarChart[{a,b}],{a,1,2},{b,1,2}]
I'd like to be able to control the size of the bars by using some sort of ...
10
votes
5answers
474 views
Using DynamicModule variables outside the DynamicModule
Take the following example for hiding/showing a notebook through a Checkbox:
...
10
votes
7answers
341 views
How to dynamically toggle curves on/off in a crowded Plot?
When multiple curves appear in a single plot, it is useful to interactively turn certain curves on or off to visually compare smaller numbers of curves. It is trivial to put a quick dynamic together, ...
10
votes
2answers
176 views
Make a button that evaluates a function over and over
I would like to have a command "RedoButton" which would make a button (or whatever control is suitable) that when clicked would print the value of a certain function over and over in the same place. ...
10
votes
2answers
226 views
ShearingTransform and Dynamic
Background: I have a geometric transformation composed of a RotationTransform, ScalingTransform and ...
