Not sure whether this is more efficient, it is probably negligible and not worth the trouble.  However, ...

We can have Maple load packages when it starts by modifying the .ini file and we can load commands in their packages using the short forms Statistics[Mean] or Statistics:-Mean however if we want to keep using the short form of that command we need to always specify the main package it's.  I was just wondering if there was a way to load only parts of a package so that we wouldn't need to make calls to the main package all the time. 

a:=[ [ 6,3],[5,6],[6,6],[5,8],[4,7],[5.5,10],[6,12],[5,11],[5,13]]

how do I select the list sets, say that contain in the first position 6.  Something like

if a[i][1]=6 then put the pair in a list.

I was trying to locate a good simple sorting method and found one however in attempts to use it, it appears not to work the way I had expected.

a := [[1, 7], [2, 3], [5, 4], [1, 2], [8, 9], [7, 9], [1, 6]]:

Can we add our own custom symbol shapes to the maple library to use with the command symbol=  ?

There must be an easy way to convert a line into math?

Sometimes you've gone to all the trouble to type out a lengthy line of math to operate only to find out it's in text mode. 

Is there a way to change it over to math?  I've tried highlighting and F5 but that didn't work.  Are we stuck to having to retype the line(s) over again?