Can anyone participate?

We want to be an inclusive community. As long as people participate within the community guidelines, we welcome them. As with all moderated communities however, difficult choices must be made occasionally to ensure the ongoing effectiveness and health of the site. Legally speaking, we do reserve the right to deny access to individuals whom the site moderators deem to be counter to the interest of the community. We will exercise this right sparingly.

Can I criticize Maplesoft and its products?

Often constructive criticism is essential for the health of an online community. We want open discussions. When criticisms go beyond the boundaries of being constructive and linger in the realm of flames, vents, and personal attacks, the moderators may deem it necessary to conclude the debate. In addition, there will be a "zero tolerance" policy for content that crosses the boundaries into illegal, libelous, and other forms of destructive content.

Can I mention or promote competing products?

We are not going to censor out all mentions of other products. Mentioning or comparing products is acceptable and desirable content. Even if it's critical in nature, it identifies areas for improvement. "Promoting" other products may require some judgment calls. If the thread goes on too long and no new constructive information is being presented then moderators may have to conclude the thread. Of course, in this situation any terms outlined in the Community Guidelines hold.

Do Maplesoft employees post to MaplePrimes?

Yes they do but it is still very much a community driven site. Maplesoft staff are free to contribute but we do not have dedicated staff other than the the group that manages the site function itself. See here for more comments.

How can I login?

The new beta.mapleprimes.com has a brand new membership system. If you have an existing MaplePrimes EMP account or a Maplesoft.com account, you will need to sign up again.

Registration is easy, you only have to pick a username and tell the site your e-mail address. Everything else is optional. So please sign up.

How do I add typeset math to my post?

See here.

How do I subscribe to the RSS feeds?

RSS feeds allow people to easily keep track of updates to their favorite websites. Say that you have 50 websites that you check every day for updates. What if instead of going to each of those individual websites, you can simply load your RSS reader and see which websites have been updated at a glance.

To use RSS feeds you will need an RSS reader. Here are two pages that list many different readers: http://blogspace.com/rss/readers and http://allrss.com/rssreaders.html. My favorite reader is Bloglines which is a web based reader that allows me to view my RSS feeds at any computer with a web connection.

Once you have your reader set up, you can start adding feeds. To add the feed for MaplePrimes, find “add feed

Is MaplePrimes a marketing ploy?

Anything officially sanctioned or funded by a corporation can be interpreted as a marketing ploy. Yes Maplesoft genuinely hopes that MaplePrimes is a positive influence on the market and that people will learn more and continue to support the Maplesoft business as a consequence of their experiences on this site. However, we have taken great pains to establish suitable distance from corporate policies and the editorial elements of the site. Our goal is to establish a truly community-driven site. However at the outset, in order to achieve critical mass of participants, MaplePrimes will initially have greater direct participation by Maplesoft staff. This is not our preference but a simple reality. If it's at all comforting, the site is not directed or operated by our Marketing department

Is MaplePrimes moderated or censored?

It is moderated and in some sense all forms of content moderation is some form of censorship. Our moderation policies, however, embody the spirit of open collaboration and we will try our best to allow open discussion while limiting illegal, disrespectful, overly inflammatory, and clearly unconstructive content. Initially, moderation will be performed by Maplesoft though the intent is to migrate towards a community-moderating concept. In general, however, we will not establish an unmoderated community. There are already good alternatives for that within the newsgroups and other discussion groups. Read the Community Guidelines for more details on the editorial and moderation policies.

What happened to the other MaplePrimes?

MaplePrimes was the name that was used for our exclusive access site for our Extended Maintenance Program (EMP) sites. Maplesoft has launched a new program for maintenance – the Elite Maintenance Program. The EMP program will soon be launching a new website within maplesoft.com that will replace the old MaplePrimes, but also will bring more benefits. The name MaplePrimes is now used for Maplesoft's band new user community.

The new MaplePrimes will help to serve more Maple users. It allows all users, including those who are not EMP customers to interact together and get even more out of their use of Maple. MaplePrimes is a web community dedicated to sharing experiences, techniques, and opinions about Maple and related products, as well as general interest topics in math and computing. Using the framework of blogs, forums, and an open editorial policy, it provides a vehicle for enthusiasts to present their thoughts, and for inquiring minds to get answers.

If you have a login for the old MaplePrimes, you will need to register for an account on the new site. You old login will no longer work.

Thank you for checking out the new site. Please post any suggestions to the forum. If you have any questions about the site, please use the Contact Form.

What's the difference between MaplePrimes and the Maple Application Center?

Within MaplePrimes, you will have the ability to post applications, exchange applications, etc. The primary difference between MaplePrimes and the Application Center is really about quality levels. For the Application Center, there is a review process an some editorial interaction with the author before it is published and ultimately, Maplesoft makes the decision. Within MaplePrimes, your application, its quality, and all other elements of it, are your responsibility. Some may want to only show their best polished work while others may wish to solicit comments on incomplete works to assist in development. Ultimately, we hope that MaplePrimes, due to its nature, becomes a vehicle for the community to be self-reviewing and dynamically identify great applications. Once the flow of applications into MaplePrimes reaches this level, we will review the role of the Maple Application Center which may become obsolete at that point as the community does a better job at producing useful application tools for others. We believe this will be a good thing for Maplesoft and users alike.

Forwarding Pages

All posts on MaplePrimes have a link on the bottom labeled "e-mail this". Clicking that link lets you send a link to the post off to an e-mail address. You can use this to send it to a friend or colleague or just e-mail it to yourself to save the link.

On the "forward this" page, you will get a form. Fill out the first two fields with your e-mail address and name. Then on the next field, list the e-mail address you would like to send the page to. Place each address on a separate line. If you wish, you can also enter a personal message that will be included in the e-mail. Click "Send Message", and the message will be sent away.

Login Help

You can log into MaplePrimes using either your MaplePrimes or Maplesoft.com login information. Accounts that have the same e-mail address will be linked together: If you previously signed up at both MaplePrimes and Maplesoft.com, when you log in you will be logged into your MaplePrimes account. If you don't have a MaplePrimes account, and log in using your Maplesoft.com information, a new account will automatically be created for you.

If you are using your MaplePrimes login, please enter your username and password.

If you are using your Maplesoft.com login, please enter your e-mail address and password.

If you don't have an account at either site yet, please register at MaplePrimes by clicking on this link.

Missing Password

If you have registered at MaplePrimes and have not yet received the e-mail containing your password, please send the username you signed up with as well as your e-mail address to the MaplePrimes support team using the contact form

Maple Ranking

A user's Maple Rank is a way to see how active they are on MaplePrimes. There are four rankings as seen in this table. New users have no Maple rank. You receive points for posting various items on MaplePrimes such as blog entries, forum posts and comments. The more points you have, the higher your Maple rank. This system is similar to the feedback system on eBay, however instead of the points being assigned by users, points come from using the site.

The table below shows the number of points that each user receives for each type of posting.

Maple Rank explanation

The points required to reach each Maple rank are shown below

Maple Rank	Points required
	400
	200
	80
	10

Posting Math to MaplePrimes

Since the topic of MaplePrimes is Mathematics, we have made it easy to have your postings on the site contain attractive formatted math notation. There are two major ways of doing this.

The easiest, is just to type the math notation straight into your post. MaplePrimes will then turn this into an attractive GIF image. Learn how.

You can also compose your posting inside of Maple and then post the Maple worksheet to MaplePrimes, learn about using this feature in the File Manager Help Page.

Posting Toolbar

All entry boxes have a set of buttons shown above them. You can use these buttons to insert the HTML tags required for common formatting on MaplePrimes.

You can read more details about the toolbar on this page

Uploading Files using the MaplePrimes File Manager

The MaplePrimes file manager is a feature that makes it easy for people to share their files with each other. With just a few clicks, you can post an attractive image, an HTML version of a Maple worksheet or even a fully interactive worksheet on MapleNet. Read on for the details on how to use this tool:

Uploading Files

You can upload many different types of files to MaplePrimes. By uploading them to the site, you can share the files with people worldwide.

Currently files with the following extensions can be uploaded: doc, dvi, eps, gif, gz, hdb, html, ind, jpeg, jpg, lib, m, mla, mm, mpl, mw, mws, pdf, png, ppt, ps, tar, tex, tgz, txt, xls, zip

If you aren't already there, go to www.mapleprimes.com/filemanager to use the File Manager. To upload a file, click on the Browse button and navigate to the file you wish to upload and double click on the file. Click the Upload button.

After you have uploaded the file, it will appear at the top of your list of files. You will see that a number is placed at the front of the filename. This number is your user ID number and is placed there to avoid users overwriting each other's files. You can download the file by clicking on the filename.

All files uploaded using the file manager have a bit of code listed under Download Link Code. You can copy (CTRL+C) and paste (CTRL+V) the code into any posting on MaplePrimes (Blog Entry, Forum Post, or Comment). This will put into your post links for the user to Download the file.

Extra options are given when you upload a Maple worksheet or an Image file. Read the below sections for information on these features.

Privacy

When you upload a file to MaplePrimes, you can choose if you want to be public or private. Private files are not shown in lists of recently uploaded files. And users other than the original upload cannot view the detail page for that file. If you choose to include a link to the file in a posting on the site, users will still be able to download the file even if the file is marked as private.

If you wish to change the privacy of a file, click on the "Set Private" or "Set Public" link in the right hand column of the file manager.

Using Maple Worksheets

After you have uploaded a worksheet to MaplePrimes, you can share it using tools provided by MaplePrimes and MapleNet. Worksheets are automatically converted to HTML so that you may post them anywhere on MaplePrimes, and they are also copied to a MapleNet server where users can interact with them just like in Maple using only a web browser.

For any worksheet that you have uploaded, You can click on the filename to download the file "View HTML version" or "Get HTML version" to view or get the HTML version of the file or "View Live Worksheet" to view the worksheet on MapleNet.

Viewing Worksheet online with MapleNet

To view a worksheet using MapleNet, just click on the View Live Worksheet link. This will direct you to the Maplesoft MapleNet server where you can interact with the worksheet very much like you do within Maple.

You can manipulate embedded components play animations rotate, scale and zoom plots and expand and collapse worksheet sections.

Getting and using HTML version

Click on Get HTML version to convert the worksheet to HTML. This will give you a page that displays the worksheet in HTML form and lists the HTML code for the worksheet at the bottom of the page. In order to post this worksheet, select all of the code and copy (CTRL+C) it to your clipboard.

Now click on Post Forum Topic or Post Blog Entry under the left hand Navigation menu.

Enter a title for your post, scroll down and paste (CTRL+V) the contents of the HTML code into the Body text field. Under Input format, choose Worksheet HTML. This allows all of the tags used in the HTML to work correctly.

Finally scroll down and click on Submit. You will then be shown the result of your post.

Using Images

When you upload an image to MaplePrimes the download link code is changed to the code required to display the image in a post. Also, a thumbnail version of your image is displayed to help you find the right picture

To insert the thumbnail version of the image into a blog entry or forum post, just copy (CTRL+C) the code and then paste (CTRL+V) it into the entry box where you would like it to appear.

If you wish to insert different sizes of your image into a posting, click on "Get code for different sizes". This will display three different sizes of your image and the code required to display the image. Copy the code and paste into your posting anywhere on the site.

User Pictures

All MaplePrimes users can upload an image that will be displayed next to their name when they post anything to MaplePrimes. You can choose any image that you like, it could be a picture of yourself, your cat, your favorite math expression, whatever.

Images can be up to 85 pixels by 85 pixels. They must be in GIF, JPG, or PNG format.

To upload your picture, click on "my account" on the top left of the page. Then click "Edit". Scroll down until you see the "Picture" section. Click "Browse" and then locate and double click on your image. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Submit". You will then see your image on your user information page.