Skip to main content

front end - Dynamically link cell content in Mathematica?


Is it possible to dynamically link the content of two cells? For example, can I set up a Notebook with two text cells that display the same value, and if the user types in one the other updates, etc.? I am familiar with Mathematica's dynamic functionality and at least the key concepts of the FrontEnd, and it seems like I should be able to assign a dynamic symbol to certain parts of a cell and just use that in an expression elsewhere, but I can't figure out how to programmatically access a cell's current content. The best I have been able to do is get a CellObject using Cells[], e.g. where the first cell is a text cell containing "This is a test!", Cells[][[1]] gives


Cell[BoxData[

TemplateBox[{6849,"6849","\"Text\""},
"CellObject"]], "Output",
CellChangeTimes->{{3.5653627710636687`*^9, 3.5653627797706504`*^9}, {
3.5653628101959224`*^9, 3.5653628192779245`*^9}, 3.5653630492614017`*^9}]

but this doesn't include the cell's content.



Answer



See if this does it for you. There are still some issues (see below).


nbA = CreateDocument[{Cell["Notebook A", "Title"],
    ExpressionCell[

     Dynamic[Refresh[
       NotebookWrite[dynamicCellObjB, NotebookRead[dynamicCellObjA]]; 
       dynamicCellObjB = First@Cells[nbB, CellTags -> "DynamicCell"]; 
       "cell to be updated:", TrackedSymbols -> {}, 
       UpdateInterval -> 5]]], 
    Cell["Edit this", "Text", CellTags -> {"DynamicCell"}]}];
dynamicCellObjA = First@Cells[nbA, CellTags -> "DynamicCell"];
nbB = CreateDocument[{Cell["Notebook B", "Title"], 
    Cell["Not this", "Text", CellTags -> {"DynamicCell"}]}];
dynamicCellObjB = First@Cells[nbB, CellTags -> "DynamicCell"];


You need something to trigger the update. Notebooks live in the front end and NotebookObjects, while living in the kernel, are just references to the front end object. Dynamic interactivity requires some variable change or event in the kernel to trigger an update. Here I used Dynamic[Refresh[.., UpdateInterval->5]] to cause an update every five seconds. You can change the update interval as you please. Another key is that the connected cells are identified by a unique cell tag ("DynamicCell" was my choice of name). There are some timing issues. I occasionally got a message on start-up, if a symbol was evaluated before it was defined.


If it seems on the right track, I hope you can adapt it to your notebooks.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

plotting - Plot 4D data with color as 4th dimension

I have a list of 4D data (x position, y position, amplitude, wavelength). I want to plot x, y, and amplitude on a 3D plot and have the color of the points correspond to the wavelength. I have seen many examples using functions to define color but my wavelength cannot be expressed by an analytic function. Is there a simple way to do this? Answer Here a another possible way to visualize 4D data: data = Flatten[Table[{x, y, x^2 + y^2, Sin[x - y]}, {x, -Pi, Pi,Pi/10}, {y,-Pi,Pi, Pi/10}], 1]; You can use the function Point along with VertexColors . Now the points are places using the first three elements and the color is determined by the fourth. In this case I used Hue, but you can use whatever you prefer. Graphics3D[ Point[data[[All, 1 ;; 3]], VertexColors -> Hue /@ data[[All, 4]]], Axes -> True, BoxRatios -> {1, 1, 1/GoldenRatio}]
Post a Comment
Read more

plotting - Filling between two spheres in SphericalPlot3D

Manipulate[ SphericalPlot3D[{1, 2 - n}, {θ, 0, Pi}, {ϕ, 0, 1.5 Pi}, Mesh -> None, PlotPoints -> 15, PlotRange -> {-2.2, 2.2}], {n, 0, 1}] I cant' seem to be able to make a filling between two spheres. I've already tried the obvious Filling -> {1 -> {2}} but Mathematica doesn't seem to like that option. Is there any easy way around this or ... Answer There is no built-in filling in SphericalPlot3D . One option is to use ParametricPlot3D to draw the surfaces between the two shells: Manipulate[ Show[SphericalPlot3D[{1, 2 - n}, {θ, 0, Pi}, {ϕ, 0, 1.5 Pi}, PlotPoints -> 15, PlotRange -> {-2.2, 2.2}], ParametricPlot3D[{ r {Sin[t] Cos[1.5 Pi], Sin[t] Sin[1.5 Pi], Cos[t]}, r {Sin[t] Cos[0 Pi], Sin[t] Sin[0 Pi], Cos[t]}}, {r, 1, 2 - n}, {t, 0, Pi}, PlotStyle -> Yellow, Mesh -> {2, 15}]], {n, 0, 1}]
Post a Comment
Read more

plotting - Mathematica: 3D plot based on combined 2D graphs

I have several sigmoidal fits to 3 different datasets, with mean fit predictions plus the 95% confidence limits (not symmetrical around the mean) and the actual data. I would now like to show these different 2D plots projected in 3D as in but then using proper perspective. In the link here they give some solutions to combine the plots using isometric perspective, but I would like to use proper 3 point perspective. Any thoughts? Also any way to show the mean points per time point for each series plus or minus the standard error on the mean would be cool too, either using points+vertical bars, or using spheres plus tubes. Below are some test data and the fit function I am using. Note that I am working on a logit(proportion) scale and that the final vertical scale is Log10(percentage). (* some test data *) data = Table[Null, {i, 4}]; data[[1]] = {{1, -5.8}, {2, -5.4}, {3, -0.8}, {4, -0.2}, {5, 4.6}, {1, -6.4}, {2, -5.6}, {3, -0.7}, {4, 0.04}, {5, 1.0}, {1, -6.8}, {2, -4.7}, {3, -1....
Post a Comment
Read more