Working with this tutorial

By Frank Hagin, Colorado School of Mines

Important note This is a hypertext version of a Mathematica document. Therefore you cannot modify text or execute commands on this or subsequent tutorial pages. However, if you open up a Mathematica window you will be able to try out all of the issues detailed here. (If necessary, go back to Getting started for information on opening a Mathematica window.) In fact, you will not really get much out of this tutorial unless you have a Mathematica window open and are ready to experiment in it.

Before you can work through this tutorial, you need to know several things about "getting around" inside a Mathematica window. This section shows you how to use the mouse to "scroll", and how to select, change and delete text.

Learning how to "scroll" through this notebook

The mouse is the small rectangular box that is attached to the keyboard. By sliding the mouse on a smooth surface (such as a pad), you can control the movement of the cursor on the screen. You move the cursor to point to items you want to manipulate. There are two "buttons" on the mouse, either of which will (unless altered) work for your purposes.

Scrolling by using the arrows

You can use the mouse and the direction arrows at the bottom left of the window to scroll up or down through the tutorial:

Point the cursor on the "down" arrow that appears at the extreme lower left corner of this notebook window and
click the mouse button once (the window will move up one line); or
simply press (and hold down) the button until you've reached a desired location.

You can similarly scroll up, or backwards, by using the "up" arrow.

Scrolling by using the "scroll bar"

There is a faster way to move up and down within a Mathematica window. Inside the grey margin strip at the left of the window is a short vertical bar with a small circle in the center (the scroll bar). You can use this bar to scroll quickly down, or up, the window:

Point the cursor on the scroll bar,
press the button (hold it down), and
drag the scroll bar down or up until you've reached a desired location.

More about the mouse and the cursor

In the course of this tutorial, you will notice that the cursor changes shape as it moves about a Mathematica window. If you move the cursor from a position inside the window to a border of the page, or off the page, the cursor will change from a vertical I-beam shape to an arrow. Also, as you (slowly) move the cursor down a window it will occasionally change to a horizontal I-beam shape. This will occur between any clusters of text that are grouped together by a bracket, ] , on the far right of the window. Any cluster of text grouped by a bracket is called a "cell".

The three basic shapes of the cursor allow you to perform different tasks:

a vertical I-beam is used for selecting text or placing the cursor within a cell;
a horizontal I-beam allows you to open more work space between cells; and
an arrow is used for pointing to items bordering, or off, the window.

You will soon have occasion to see the implications of these various shapes.

Adding new text

You can add or change (edit) text by using the mouse. Practice adding text right now:

Move the cursor to the top of clean Mathematica window or between two cells of text (watch for the horizontal I-beam);
click the mouse -- a blinking vertical bar will appear; then
add new text there by typing something.

Type "Some new stuff" in the Mathematica window now.

Deleting text

Here is how to delete the text added above as a block:

Move the cursor to the beginning of your added text, just before the "S" in "Some";
"select" the text (that is, press and drag the mouse to the right until the text "Some new stuff" is completely shaded in grey); and
hit the Delete key (located on the upper right of the main keyboard, with the left arrow). The shaded text will disappear.

You can also delete text one symbol at a time by

placing the cursor immediately after the symbol(s) to be deleted and
repeatedly hitting the Delete key until the desired text has been removed.

By combining the above features, moving about, adding and deleting text, one can change any text as desired. You will get more practice below.

How to continue this Tutorial---or Quit

You will see that this tutorial has been divided into several sections, created for convenience in finding a section of interest. For example, if you needed to get off the computer now, you would want to "open up" the section How to exit this tutorial.

But, let's assume that you want to open the next section, What is Mathematica?
To do this:

Put the cursor on the section title and
click once with the mouse.

This (short) section should open up for you. Try it.

The next sections, Some basic elements of Mathematica and Some additional issues, are much larger sections. Open these sections when you are ready to start learning Mathematica. The section, Some Mathematica commands, is a summary of the commands that you will be using this year; and is included for later reference. Finally, the section, Now you try some things, will give you the opportunity to put what you've learned in this tutorial to the test.