Table of Contents

• Starting Maple
• Overview of the Interface
• The Toolbar
• Creating, Opening, and Saving Worksheets
• Text Mode vs. Input Mode
• Maple Input
• How Do I Enter Commands and Receive Output?

Exercises

Quiz

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Starting Maple

On most computers, the Maple setup program creates a folder in your Start Menu. The folder is usually named Maple X Release Y where X is your major version number (usually 4, V, or 6), and Y is your revision number. Inside that folder, you will see a whole bunch of icons for various Maple tasks. Look for a menu item with the same name as the folder. If you see a Parallel Server icon, don't choose it. Once you click on the menu item, you should see Maple's splash screen.

If you are on a college campus or other environment where the system administrators have modified the computers to make them easier to use, you may need to look in a different place. Some computers have an icon on the Desktop for Maple. Others may have the Start Menus categorized by type of program. If you have trouble finding the icon or menu item to start Maple, check with your system administrator(s).

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Overview of the Interface

The Maple interface looks like this: (Depending on your screen size, Maple may look smaller or larger on your computer.)

Like other Windows programs you have used, Maple has an MDI (or Multiple Document Interface). That means you can have more than one worksheet open at a time. Maple also has two toolbars. We will examine them next.

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The Toolbar

Maple has two toolbars: the main toolbar and the Context toolbar. The main toolbar appears when you start Maple and doesn't change or go away until you close Maple. Here are the buttons on the main toolbar and their functions:

	Creates a new worksheet			Opens a worksheet			Saves your current worksheet
	Prints the current worksheet			Moves highlighted text or Maple Input to the clipboard			Copies highlighted text or Maple Input to the clipboard
	Pastes the contents of the clipboard into the current worksheet			Undoes the last action			Performs the last undone action
	Toggles Math Mode			Toggles Text Mode			Inserts an execution group after the cursor
	Outdent / Indent highlighted text			Halts Maple's current computation			Changes Maple's zoom factor
	Show / Hide formatting marks			Enlarges the current worksheet's window to full size

The Context bar changes when you do something new in Maple. For example, when you are editing text, you have a text toolbar with functions like changing font, style, size, etc. However, when you are in Maple Input mode, you will see options for changing the format and type of the Maple Input. If you click on a plot in Maple, you will see various functions for modifying the plot.

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Creating, Opening, and Saving Worksheets

Maple documents are called worksheets. Maple lets you create, open, and save worksheets like other programs. To create a worksheet, choose New from the File menu or click the New button on the main toolbar. Opening and saving a worksheet work the same way. You use the Open and Save commands on the File menu. You can also use the buttons on the toolbar.

If you have never used a computer before Windows 95 came out, you may not recognize Maple's Open and Save dialog boxes. If you do remember the days of Windows 3.1, then the dialog boxes will be familiar. Although Maple was built for Windows 95 and higher, it still uses the "old-style" common dialog.

As you can see from the screenshot on the right, Maple does allow you to use long filenames (filenames that can contain more than 8 letters and spaces).

Maple's Open and Save dialogs have four major parts.

• File name - This allows you to tell Maple what name to give a file when you save it. It also allows you to search for a file to open by filename instead of finding it in the list
• File List - This is a list of all Maple worksheets in the current directory. To open a file, find it in the list and double-click on it. To overwrite an existing file with the current document, you can also double-click it from the Save dialog.
• Folders List - This gives you a list of folders on the current drive. It allows you to change which folder Maple will look for a file or save a new file. To select a folder, double-click it. (If you want to find the Windows Desktop, go to C:\Windows\Desktop)
• Drives List - This gives you a list of all hard drives, removable media drives, and network shares. To change to another drive, click the box and choose another drive.

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Text Mode vs. Input Mode

You can use Maple as a text editor as well as the math interface. To switch to text mode, click the Text button on the toolbar. This removes the Maple Input prompt and gives you a plain cursor. You can change the format of the text on the context bar. Using this feature, you can use Maple to create typeset documents with math symbols that you could not do in other programs.

Maple's Input Mode is a form of Maple Input. Maple Input lets you typeset math into text. The Input Mode is what you use when you want to pass commands to Maple's kernel to be processed. To get a command prompt so you can type commands, click the New Execution Group button on the toolbar. Switching from Text Mode to Input Mode and vice versa allows you to create complex documents with text, Maple Input, and Maple commands and their results.

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Maple Input

As stated earlier, Maple Input is a type of input that typesets math.

Creating Maple Input is rather easy.

Example: Lets type the following: I love Maple. It can tell me the answer to 2 + 2.

• Start Maple and create a new worksheet, if one isn't automatically created.
• Switch to Text Mode and type I love Maple. It can tell me the answer to . Make sure you insert one space and a period after to.
• Press the left-arrow key once. This positions your cursor where you want to insert the Maple Input.
• Go to Insert -> Maple Input
• You will see the context bar change. Like Microsoft Excel, Maple has a bar that allows you to create the Maple Input expression. The expression is Maple code that tells Maple what to put in the Maple Input.
• Make sure your cursor is in the expression bar and type 2+2 then press Enter
• You should see the Maple Input change from a question mark to 2 + 2.
• To illustrate deleting Maple Input, highlight the Maple Input with your mouse cursor.
• Press Delete. The Maple Input should now be gone.
• To Undo that, choose Edit -> Undo.

Remember: When you use Maple Input, make sure you have something to the right of the Maple Input. Otherwise, it can be hard to position the cursor directly to the right of the Maple Input.

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How Do I Enter Commands and Receive Output?

With Maple, type your commands using the keyboard. When you finish typing your command, press Return to have Maple execute it. You can put your cursor in any executed command, press Return, and Maple will re-execute it, replacing the old output with the new.

For example:

> 2+2;

When you replace the second two with a three and press Return, your screen changes to:

> 2+3;

For now, terminate each command with a semicolon. Later, we will learn places in which you will not want to use a semicolon.

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