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Can Maple enable writing of problems as efficiently on PC as on paper...?
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I'm considering buying Maple but I need to know something...
Does the functionality Maple provides (like the equation editor) allow for writing out math as quickly and effeciently as doing it on paper? I ask because I have a rather unique disability that has left me without the ability to write, making it difficult to learn math. I'd like to find software that will allow me to write math on the PC like you might see on paper.
I mean, like, I can type in the factors for a multiplication problem and it will format them and allow me to solve them like on paper.
If Maple cannot do this, do you know software that does?
Thanks in advance.
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Probably, not
Probably, not. You might try though and see how it will go. If you don't have problems with typing, LaTeX may be a good choice. Also, I would start with SAGE rather than with Maple, for various reasons.
Alec
Entering math in Maple
Hi Lumian,
I don't know if you've looked here yet but it gives a bit of an overview of what is possible in terms of entering math in Maple. Basically, there are 2 ways of working in Maple: either the Classic view which allows you to work directly with Maple as a programming language, and the Document mode which was developed to allow users to enter math in a natural way (like writing it by hand).
Other good resources you could look at are the training movies (especially "Entering Math in Maple) and the QuickStart training (much more comprehensive). These screen capture movies actually show someone using Maple in Document mode, so it should give you a good idea of whether Maple will do what you want or not.
Stephanie
Maplesoft
Easy as paper
Hi Lumian
Writing math as easily as it's done by hand is a very difficult problem, and I can safely say that no computer system exists that is as easy to use as the human hand. In fact many people are working on being able to read handwritten math precisely because that's the easiest way for most people to create it. That's the bad news.
Now for the good news. The Maple interface is probably as easy as any for creating math. It does it in a WYSIWYG way (What You See Is What You Get), as opposed to LaTeX which is very powerful but involves you writing coded character sequences to represent math symbols. With LaTeX you usually write the symbols for what you want and then execute LaTeX to see if you got it right; then you fix any problems and try again. With Maple you can see the Math being built up as you type. LaTeX also won't do any actual calculations for you( it's just a typesetting package), whereas Maple will.
I'm not familiar with SAGE, but what I've seen indicates that it doesn't have the capability to output (or input) math so that it looks like math you would write by hand. Maple can do both of those. I think you would find Maple suited your needs better than SAGE or LaTeX. Please feel free to ask more questions.
David Clayworth Maplesoft GUI Developer
LaTeX and SAGE
There are quite a few LaTeX editors with a lot of buttons and palettes, allowing entering symbols by clicking there. However, as far as I can tell, they are in use mostly by novice users. It is much easier (and faster) to use keyboard instead. Some of editors (I think, Textures on Mac, in particular) display symbols parallel with typing. Others (LyX and TeXmacs) do even better job displaying LaTeX in WySiWyw (what you see is what you want) manner.
SAGE uses jsMath for math display in the notebook, and matplotlib for plots, with extensive LaTeX capabilities. Formulas entered in the notebook in usual SAGE format looks very nice in the 2D-output. See some screenshots done by a high school student. 1D-input and 2D-output as in SAGE (and in less developed form, but still, in Classic Maple), has many advantages compared to 2D-input in Standard Maple. One of the most significant is reproducibility. Also, it is much better for copying and pasting. However, I know that some people (mostly from Maplesoft) use 2D-input for their work, so it is theoretically possible (but they still have to rewrite it in LaTeX if they want to publish their work.)
Another possibility, not mentioned above, is Scientific WorkPlace. It combines LaTeX and CAS (MuPad, which is similar to Maple, more lightweight, but with good graphics including png and svg formats, and with very good combinatorial package - people who developed it, switched to development for SAGE now.)
Alec
Texmacs
Texmacs, despite its name, uses its own formater, not TeX. But it can export to LaTeX and other formats. It has buttons for the usual constructs (fractions, roots, etc). And most interestingly, it can work as a frontend to several mathematical programs via plugins: Maple, Maxima, Axiom, Mupad, Sage, R, etc. This is simpler in Linux than in Windows, though.
Lyx and TeXmacs
LyX also. It is not a pure LaTeX, but it is derived from it and is close to it. There are plugins for both Maple and Sage in TeXmacs and they also can be accessed from LyX (but not that easily.)
I would like both of them more if they used pure LaTeX. Lyx is closer to that. Originally, it started as WySiWym front-end for LaTeX, but then it started to go further and further from that. Still, it is much closer to LaTeX than TeXmacs.
Also, TexMacs's second part of the name which came from emacs, shows how it uses keyboard - a lot of commands need to push 3 keys simultaneously, as in emacs. There are people who like that, but I am not one of them.
Alec