Some Maple Basics

Starting Maple

To use Maple on an RCS workstation:

1. Log on to the workstation using your Rensselaer userid and password.
2. Position the mouse cursor over the Maple: Symbolic Math Package entry in the RCS Applications menu and click once with the left mouse button. (If you double-click, you will start up two copies of Maple.)
3. The Maple entry will momentarily turn black to indicate that you have selected it, and a message will appear in the Messages window. After a few moments, the Maple graphic user interface should appear on the screen. (Be patient; it sometimes takes a while.) Once the Maple windows have appeared, you must make sure that the cursor is located anywhere inside the Maple main window before you start to enter commands.

You enter Maple commands at the Maple chevron (>) prompt in the smaller session window. Be sure to end each Maple statement with a semicolon (or a colon, if you do not wish to display the result.) If you forget the (semi)colon, no further Maple commands will work until you enter it. Maple will issue the warning about the incomplete statement below the command line.

Saving Your Maple Session

If you would like to be able to continue your Maple session at a later time, recreating the same environment and variables:

1. Pull down the File menu and select Save As.... A Save Session window will appear.
2. Click on the Filename field, and type in a file name. (You can specify a directory at the same time by naming it with a format similar to directory_name/file_name.)
3. Click on Save.

The above procedure will create a file with a .mws extension (the extension .mws stands for "Maple Work Sheet"). This file is not printable and is only readable by Maple.

NOTE: NEVER print the files produced by the Save command. Doing so will only produce many pages of garbage.

To save your Maple session to an existing file, click on Save rather than Save As... in the Maple File menu.

Resuming a Maple Session

To retrieve a previous Maple session:

1. Pull down the File menu and select the Open... menu item. A separate Open File window will appear.
2. If the name of the desired file appears in the Files field, click on it to select it; otherwise, type the file name in the Filename field.
3. Click on the OK button in the upper right corner of the window to finishing loading and opening the desired file.

Quitting Maple

If you want to print your session, or plan to continue your current session at a later time, be sure to save the session before you quit. (See the sections "Printing Your Maple Session" and "Saving and Resuming Your Maple Session" for instructions.)

To quit Maple, open the File menu and select Exit.

Other Maple Hints

Click on the items listed below to access additional Maple-related hints.

• Getting Started with Maple
• Hands On Introduction to Maple
• Obtaining Online Help in Maple
• Finding Additional Maple Documentation
• Printing Your Maple Session
• Printing Maple Plots
• Some Helpful Tips for Using Maple
• Working with a Text Interface
• Using Maple Remotely
• Reading Data into Maple
• Information on the Student Edition of Maple

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