Deleting Print results

Question

While playing around with $Pre and $Post I created this very annoying piece of code:

$Post = If[# =!= 
 Null, (Print@"Are you sure you want to know the result?"; 
 Print@Row@{Button["Yes", Print@#], Button["No", Null]}), Null] &;

I have not yet found a use for it (other than possibly playing pranks on Mma newbies) but it led me to the following question:

How can one delete a certain cell that was created by Print (i.e. without selecting the cell manually)? And furthermore, how can one create a button that deletes itself upon being clicked (still evaluating the action)?

Ultimately I want the button to delete both itself and the "Are you sure..." cell.

I found out in the documentation that PrintTemporary objects can be deleted using NotebookDelete. Is there a similar way for Print cells? I think something similar to what I want could be done using ChoiceDialog and the like, but I'm really interested in deleting the Print cells.

To select "Print" cells, use something like the programmatic approaches here or here (modify to select a print cell). As for the button question, I'm certain it was asked previously (either here or on SO) and answered either by Heike or Sjoerd (if memory serves me right). I need to leave now, but perhaps this might be enough to get started (or searching) — rm -rf, Jan 18 '13 at 00:05
I thought someone must have asked this, but I could't find anything. Thanks for the links. I'll look into them in detail tomorrow. It seems like tagging the cells as in the second link should work for me. — einbandi, Jan 18 '13 at 00:16
@rm-rf. Regarding the button question: were you thinking of this — m_goldberg, Jan 18 '13 at 00:23
@m_goldberg That seems to be the one (I must've misremembered the users). There's also this very relevant question on self-destructing buttons and this one on self-destructing input cells, both of which can possibly be modified for the question here. — rm -rf, Jan 18 '13 at 01:10

kglr · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-18T05:29:07.697

A self-destructing cell that creates a self-destructing button which deletes all cells generated by Print:
(credit: Sasha, jVincent and Yves Klett for the ideas in answers/comments in the linked Q/As)

Print[Button["Delete Print-generated cells & disappear", 
 NotebookFind[SelectedNotebook[], "Print", All, CellStyle]; NotebookDelete[]]];
 SelectionMove[EvaluationNotebook[], All, EvaluationCell]; NotebookDelete[];

enter image description here

After evaluating the cell

 NotebookFind[SelectedNotebook[], "Print", All, CellStyle];

enter image description here

Note the CellStyles (highlighted) of an ordinary Output cell and that of the one produced by Print.

After evaluating

Print[Button["Delete Print-generated cells & disappear", 
 NotebookFind[SelectedNotebook[], "Print", All, CellStyle]; NotebookDelete[]]];
 SelectionMove[EvaluationNotebook[], All, EvaluationCell]; NotebookDelete[];

enter image description here

After the clicking the button:

enter image description here

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 18 '13 at 01:54

With the help provided in the comments I have achieved almost exactly what I want using this code:

$Post = If[# =!= Null,
    CellPrint[
     TextCell["Are you sure you want to know the result?",
      CellTags -> "tag"]];
    CellPrint[ExpressionCell[
      Row@{
        Button["Yes",
         NotebookLocate["tag"]; NotebookDelete[]; 
         CellPrint[ExpressionCell[#, "Output"]]],
        Button["No", NotebookLocate["tag"]; NotebookDelete[]]}, 
      CellTags -> "tag"]]] &;

It uses CellPrint instead of Print and tags the created cells to locate and delete them afterwards. The only thing that does not quite work as I expected is that no matter where a cell is evaluated, after clicking the "Yes" button, the result is always printed at the very end of the notebook, and not where the actualy output should be.

Deleting Print results

2 Answers2

Linked