disable "disable dynamic updating?"?

[d***@indiana.edu]

How do I tell Mathematica to stop asking me if I want to "Disable
Dynamic Updating"? It's really getting on my nerves.

[ragfield]

Post by d***@indiana.edu
How do I tell Mathematica to stop asking me if I want to "Disable
Dynamic Updating"? It's really getting on my nerves.

As is stated in the dialog you mention, edit the values of the
TrustedPath and/or UntrustedPath options in the Preferences dialog.
Though before doing so, please take a moment to consider the security
implications. If you download a notebook from an untrusted website or
receive a notebook via email and open it, Mathematica could
automatically execute (potentially malicious) code with no additional
steps. This is discussed in the tutorial/NotebookSecurity
documentation page.

Another option would be to simply store your notebooks somewhere
besides your Desktop directory. From the mentioned documentation:

By default, the UntrustedPath option value contains the user's desktop
folder (where web browser downloads are likely to be stored), the
user's configuration folder (where email attachments are likely to be
stored), and the computer's temporary directory. If the user has
configured his or her web browser or email program to save downloaded
files in nonstandard locations, then the user is encouraged to add
these locations to the UntrustedPath option value.

Yet another option would be to upgrade from 6.0.0 to 6.0.1. 6.0.1 has
a better notion of what dynamic content is safe, and will therefore
put up the warning dialog less frequently with the default settings.

-Rob

[d***@indiana.edu]

Thanks for your response.

I'm running version 6.0.1. There is no advice in the "Disable Dynamic
Updating?" dialog to reset TrustedPath options.

I tried editing the setting under Preferences->System->Edit Trusted
Directories (is that what you meant?), but it seems to be having no
effect on frequent dialog boxes popping up to ask if I want dynamic
updating disabled.

Maybe you misunderstood which dialog box I'm talking about. There are
actually two messag windows that come up. The first is small
"progress dialog" that just says "formatting notebook contents", then
after a while longer the bigger one asking if I want to disable
dynamic updating and telling me how to turn it back on.

Post by ragfield

Post by d***@indiana.edu
How do I tell Mathematica to stop asking me if I want to "Disable
Dynamic Updating"? It's really getting on my nerves.

As is stated in the dialog you mention, edit the values of the
TrustedPath and/or UntrustedPath options in the Preferences dialog.
Though before doing so, please take a moment to consider the security
implications. If you download a notebook from an untrusted website or
receive a notebook via email and open it, Mathematica could
automatically execute (potentially malicious) code with no additional
steps. This is discussed in the tutorial/NotebookSecurity
documentation page.
Another option would be to simply store your notebooks somewhere
By default, the UntrustedPath option value contains the user's desktop
folder (where web browser downloads are likely to be stored), the
user's configuration folder (where email attachments are likely to be
stored), and the computer's temporary directory. If the user has
configured his or her web browser or email program to save downloaded
files in nonstandard locations, then the user is encouraged to add
these locations to the UntrustedPath option value.
Yet another option would be to upgrade from 6.0.0 to 6.0.1. 6.0.1 has
a better notion of what dynamic content is safe, and will therefore
put up the warning dialog less frequently with the default settings.
-Rob

[ragfield]

Post by d***@indiana.edu
I'm running version 6.0.1. There is no advice in the "Disable Dynamic
Updating?" dialog to reset TrustedPath options.

"Notebooks stored in directories on TrustedPath are assumed to be
trusted. Notebooks stored in directories on UntrustedPath are assumed
to be untrusted. TrustedPath and UntrustedPath can be edited in the
Preferences dialog."

Post by d***@indiana.edu
I tried editing the setting under Preferences->System->Edit Trusted
Directories (is that what you meant?),

Yes.

Post by d***@indiana.edu
but it seems to be having no
effect on frequent dialog boxes popping up to ask if I want dynamic
updating disabled.

What value did you set for the option? What is an example path of
file that still gives this dialog? If, for example, your
UntrustedPath inclues FileName[{$DesktopDirectory}] (as it does by
default), then you will get this dialog when opening files on your
desktop that include dynamic content that is potentially unsafe. Read
tutorial/NotebookSecurity in the Mathematica documentation for a
precise description of what is considered potentially unsafe.

Post by d***@indiana.edu
Maybe you misunderstood which dialog box I'm talking about. There are
actually two messag windows that come up. The first is small
"progress dialog" that just says "formatting notebook contents", then
after a while longer the bigger one asking if I want to disable
dynamic updating and telling me how to turn it back on.

The dialog box I am talking about contains the following text:

"
The notebook you are opening contains dynamic content that may result
in automatic execution of Mathematica programs stored in the notebook.

Do not enable dynamic content unless you trust the Notebook's source.
Notebooks stored in directories on TrustedPath are assumed to be
trusted. Notebooks stored in directories on UntrustedPath are assumed
to be untrusted. TrustedPath and UntrustedPath can be edited in the
Preferences dialog.
"

-Rob

[d***@indiana.edu]

Post by ragfield
"
The notebook you are opening contains dynamic content that may result
in automatic execution of Mathematica programs stored in the notebook.
Do not enable dynamic content unless you trust the Notebook's source.
Notebooks stored in directories on TrustedPath are assumed to be
trusted. Notebooks stored in directories on UntrustedPath are assumed
to be untrusted. TrustedPath and UntrustedPath can be edited in the
Preferences dialog.
"

OK, that's the confusion. The dialog box I keep getting says:

"One or more dynamic elements are taking excessively long to finish
evaluating."

Then it asks if I want to disable dynamic updating or continue
waiting. I always hit "continue waiting", but sometimes it will just
pop up again 10 seconds later. Moreover this seems to interrupt the
operation of the rest of the FrontEnd, and sometimes results in
glitches in the formatting when it finally does complete. I would
really like to be able to turn this dialog off.

[Albert Retey]

Hi,

Post by d***@indiana.edu
Then it asks if I want to disable dynamic updating or continue
waiting. I always hit "continue waiting", but sometimes it will just
pop up again 10 seconds later. Moreover this seems to interrupt the
operation of the rest of the FrontEnd, and sometimes results in
glitches in the formatting when it finally does complete. I would
really like to be able to turn this dialog off.

I think the only possibility to get rid of the dialog and the behavior
you report is to turn off dynamics (uncheck Evaluation -> 'Dynamic
Updating Enabled'). But this is probably not what you want, since
obviously you are using dynamic content in your notebooks. Instead I
would recommend to check which dynamic parts of your notebooks make this
dialog appear and try to get rid of those.

I have encountered the problems you are describing when resizing windows
containing deeply nested Panels which contained OpenerViews. My
impression on this was that Mathematica didn't like that it had to
recalculate the panel sizes (or did that in an inefficient way). So I
don't nest Panels and OpenerViews that deep anymore and the problems are
gone.

There might be other things that just don't work very well (yet) and
need to be avoided. Remember that all the Dynamics-stuff is rather new
code. Actually I am surprised how well it works overall for being all
new in version 6...

hth,

albert

[ragfield]

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[d***@indiana.edu]

Post by ragfield

=A0"One or more dynamic elements are taking excessively long to finish
evaluating."
Then it asks if I want to disable =A0dynamic updating or continue
waiting. =A0I always hit "continue waiting", but sometimes it will just
pop up again 10 seconds later. =A0Moreover this seems to interrupt the
operation of the rest of the FrontEnd, and sometimes results in
glitches in the formatting when it finally does complete. =A0I would
really like to be able to turn this dialog off.

Ah, that's an entirely different issue altogether. There is no way to
turn this dialog off, but you also don't need to do anything with it.
The dialog will automatically disappear if and when the dynamic
content finishes evaluating.

Actually, no, that doesn't seem to be the case. No matter how long I
wait the dialog remains up until I click a button.

Post by ragfield
Just to clarify, this dialog is not interfering with the operation of
the rest of the Front End.

No, I think it *is* interfering, see below.

Post by ragfield
Some extremely slow Dynamic evaluation is
interfering with the operation of the rest of the Front End and this
dialog is informing you of this fact and giving you the option to
cancel it before things get even more out of control. Dynamic content
is meant to be interactive, so it should evaluate quickly. When this
dialog appears it probably means that some slow evaluation was wrapped
in Dynamic[] that shouldn't have been.
Check out the section titled "Slow Evaluations inside Dynamic" in
To avoid locking up the front end for good, dynamic evaluations are
internally wrapped in TimeConstrained, with a timeout value of, by
default, 5 seconds. (This can be changed with the
DynamicEvaluationTimeout option.) In certain extreme cases,
TimeConstrained can fail to abort the calculation, in which case the
front end will, a few seconds later, put up a dialog box allowing you
to terminate dynamic updating until the offending output has been
deleted.

That's it!! Thank you! Apparently Mathematica was trying to kill my
calculation because it lasted more than 5 seconds, but for some reason
was unable to do so, and thus it put up the dialog proposing an
alternative resolution. The fact that it was trying to kill the
calculation might explain the rendering glitches I mentioned.

I have used the SynchronousUpdating->False option, and that has more
or less fixed the problem. This is embarassing because I actually
knew about that option, had used it in another program, and then
forgot about it and didn't recognize my current problem as the same as
one I had previously dealt with (because in the other case Mathematica
succeeded in killing the calculation, so the symptoms were different).

In any case, thanks for your help!