Maple
Maple is the ultimate productivity tool for solving mathematical problems and creating interactive technical applications. Intuitive and easy to use, it delivers the most advanced, complete, reliable mathematical capabilities that can only come from a market-leading tool that has been developed and tested over 25 years. Maple allows you to create rich, executable technical documents that provide both the answer and the thinking behind the analysis. Maple documents seamlessly combine numeric and symbolic calculations, explorations, mathematical notation, documentation, buttons and sliders, graphics, and animations that can be shared and reused by your colleagues.[1]
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Starting Maple
Start Maple from the G-Bar menu under Course Software->Mathematics->Maple 15 or directly in a terminal by typing:
gbarstart maple15
The G-Bar currently supports Maple 14 and 15.
Installing Maple on your personal computer
You can get Maple 15 for your own computer by downloading it from the G-Bar software site. You will also find licence keys there. If you encount any problems while installing, please see this page for help.
Please note that you must install as an administrator under Windows, and that the also activation requires you to be an administrator (the first time you run Maple, a registration dialog pops up).
NB! Please also be aware that Maple wants to use Visual C++ on 64bit Windows machines; this is however not required, and you should therefore make sure that Maple is not setup to use Visual C++ during the installation. Furthermore you must install Maple as Administrator of your personal computer. Otherwise, the license file will not be correctly installed.
Math Input
Maple 11 introduced 2-D Math input. The 2-D Math input is displayed in the same way you would write equations. If you prefer the old Maple input (written in red) for all you work the standard input can be changed.
This is done in Tools -> Options -> Display -> Choose the Input display to be Maple Notation and in the Interface tab the Default format for new worksheets should be Worksheet. If you press Apply Globally the chosen standards will be used for all future worksheet.
I cannot type the '|' (pipe) character
Due to an error in programs with a Java GUI (like Maple) it is difficult to make a | (pipe). You can get a | by pressing Shift, Alt Graph and the button with <, > and \.
I cannot print from Maple
Sometimes Maple has trouble with printing out documents - especially if they contain large graphics. A workaround is as follows:
- Open your document.
- Select File → Print preview. A new window opens up.
- Click Print. A printing dialog box appears.
- Select a printer (any printer).
Note::The status of printer must be "Accepting jobs". - Check off the "Print to file" flag.
- Press print. A new dialog box appears.
- Enter a filename (e.g. document.ps) and press OK.
Note: There is two places you can enter text: At the top and at the bottom.
The top field is the path. As default this is your home directory.
The bottom field is the filename. This is where you should type in document.ps. - Open up a terminal (Menu => Terminal => Terminal)
- Type xpp <filename> or gtklp <filename> in the terminal. E.g.:
xpp document.ps
- Select the printer you want to print to, and press Print.
- When done, you can remove the PostScript file again
rm document.ps
Known issues with Maple
Kernel connection has been lost
The most frequent error message encountered is "Kernel connection has been lost" The known reasons for this problem is listed below:
- Maple won't start at all
This may be caused by files whose modification time is newer than your system clock. See Maple's website for more information.
- Maple won't evaluate a specific expression
Check your typing. If you try to evaluate an expression containing an integration of 'f(t)' (a function declaration) maple will in some instances return the "kernel has been lost..." message.
- Maple won't evaluate any expression
Check your firewall settings. Maple consist of two layers, a GUI (Graphic user interface) and a computational layer. Some firewall settings may prevent the two layers from communicating. Try deactivating your firewall. Also see maplesoft homepage for further help.
- "There were problems during the loading process. Your worksheet may be incomplete."
There is a simple solution for this. First, try restarting Maple and reloading the file. Secondary, if the problem still persists, you can increase the resources available to the loading mechanism. In the launch.ini file in the bin directory, add the following: java_args=-DentityExpansionLimit=1000000
Maple only shows blank characters
Some users has reported that they are unable to see any special characters in maple and it only shows blank white boxes instead. This is a rare problem and no direct solution has been found yet. But, the problem has only been observed on Vista machines and the recomende action is therefore to upgrade to Windows 7.
If your problem is not listed here, contact the G-bar-support or check the Maplesoft homepage.