Starting Maple

1. Running Maple from an Xlogin Start Maple grahical user interface:

         xmaple
   

   Start Maple w/o motif graphical user interface:

         maple
   

2. Running Maple remotely

   If you are running xmaple on a Unix computer other than the one you originally logged onto (ie: you are remotely accessing Rohan from another Unix computer), you should use ssh to connect to Rohan. The ssh (Secure Shell) program will set your DISPLAY variable so graphics can be viewed. Telnet and rsh will not.

   If you can not use ssh, you must reset the DISPLAY variable on the remote machine to that of the machine you are logged onto. See the X Windows page for more information.

3. Running Maple in batch mode. Maple can be run in a non-interactive (batch) mode with an input file, e.g. maple_script.m, containing the commands which would have been executed in the command window of maple. To submit the job and then be able to logout, use the Unix command,

      nohup maple < maple_script.m > output_file &
   

   and output from the session will be written to a file named output_file. You can run a job at a specified time when the computer is less likely to be loaded down with other tasks using the Unix at command as follows:

      echo "maple < maple_script.m > output_file" | at hh:mm
   

   and the Maple job will run at the specified time hh:mm, e.g. 01:00 for 1 am.

Getting Help

The Maple Online Help can be accessed from the Help menu in the Maple graphical user interface or by typing a ? at the Maple prompt, e.g. > ?. The "Introduction" selection of the Help menu will bring up a new Help window within the Maple interface which enables traversing of the online help through successive selection of help categories such as Graphics, Mathematics, Programming, Basic and Advanced Features, etc. Choosing (single click) the "Getting Started" category provides access to Maple's online tutorial, the "New User's Tour". This tutorial is formated as a Maple worksheet and can be used interactively.

Maple contains many packages of subject specific library functions. A listing of these packages can be accessed from the Help window by successively selecting the categories "System", "Libraries and Packages", and "packages".

The Maple Manuals The Maple Learning and Programming Guides are available for reference in the Reserve Book Room in Love Library. These guides can also be ordered from Waterloo Maple through the SDSU Bookstore.

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Tutorial Documents

• A Short Introduction to the Maple Language produced at the University of Kentucky .
• An Introductory Guide to Maple short introduction with brief descriptions of commands used in calculus (pdf, 20 pages)
• Getting Started with Maple An introduction to Maple that covers Algerbra, Differential Equations, Fourier Series, Linear Algebra, and Plotting (plot, plot3d, and plots package)
• New User's Tour a web version of Maple's tutorial at University of Virginia.
• UT San Antonio's Maple page an extensive site on Maple maintained by the math department at UT San Antonio
• Maple Student Center Maple provides free tutorials for downloading. Maple Essentials, Maple Programming, Calculus, Differential Equations to name a few.

Many useful documents in Maple's worksheet format (with .mws extension) are available on the Web and can be accessed from a Web browser by configuring the browser to use Maple as a helper application. Then the Web browser will start Maple automatically when you point to a Maple document. This assumes that Maple is available/installed on the same machine from which you are running the Web browser.

To make Maple a helper application for Netscape 4.78 on the Rohan system, set the following fields after choosing Preferences under the Edit menu, and then Applications under the Navigator category, and then New... MIMEType: application/maple-v-r4
Suffixes: mws
Application: /uva/bin/xmaple %s

The procedure is the same for netscape on a Windows PC, but using whatever the path is to the local Maple executable. For further information on accessing Maple from the Web, see the document Maple and the WWW .

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Maple Examples

Maple has a series of example worksheets that can be accessed from the Help window (invoked from the xmaple Help menu and selecting "Introduction") by selecting the category "Example Worksheets". They cover the Maple language and system, algebra, geometry, general numerics and symbolics, differential equations, and graphics, as well as other topics.

Maple Application Center

Maple Powertools and applications contributed by Maple users.

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Other Maple Resources

Maple Advisor Database The Maple Advisor Database is a project of the Symbolic Computation Group of the University of British Columbia, and consists of a library of Maple procedures, plus a database of Maple help pages.

MapleTech Journal Homepage of journal to communicate applications among creators and users of Maple software. Hardcopy of this journal is also available in the Research Computing Support Center.

Maple Newsgroup Newsgroup devoted to issues involving use of Maple.

Symbolic Math Newsgroup Newsgroup devoted to issues involving use of symbolic mathematics software generally and Maple specifically.

Waterloo FAQ Frequently asked questions compiled by the maker of Maple.

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