Maple Support

Maple is technical software system for doing symbolic and numeric computation. It has both a text-based and graphical user interface, an extensible programming language, and sophisticated 2-D and 3-D plotting utilities. It also has word processing capabilities, export to HTML and Latex, and connectivity to Excel, Matlab, and external C-callable libraries.

Availability | Getting Started | Getting Help | Frequent Questions | Examples | Other Resources

Maple Availability

The University has a site license for Maple on the following platforms: Sun Solaris, SGI IRIX, IBM AIX, Linux, Windows (98/NT/2K/ME/XP), and Macintosh. Maple version 11 is currently available on UVA Unix platforms. Maple 10 is available in ITC's Public Labs under Start/Programs/Mathematics/Maple 10. Faculty and staff (including graduate students employed as teaching or research assistants) can currently obtain Maple 11 for the Windows and Macintosh operating systems from the Research Computing Support Center in Wilson 244 for free. Unlike other math packages, users of Maple do not need to be in contact with a licensing server while using the software.

The current supported release is Maple 11. The instructions for single-user installation of Maple 11 are now available for Windows and MacIntosh platforms.

Upgrade Announcement
Announcement concerning the most recent upgrade of Maple.

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Getting Started with Maple

Access from Unix Platforms

Access from Windows

Access From Macs

Installation instructions for Linux, Windows, and Mac platforms are available on the Maple installation webpage.

NOTE: The binary for the Macintosh platform is a  Universal Build, so Maple runs successfully on the Intel Mac.

Access From Unix Platforms

1. The filesystem /common should be mounted from the Unix server jeeves.itc.virginia.edu to the Unix platforms (Sun Solaris, SGI IRIX, IBM AIX, Linux) that you are logged into. In addition, the directory for the appropriate platform (e.g. /solaris or /linux) should also be mounted from jeeves.itc and a symbolic link created from the uva subdirectory of the platform directory (e.g. /linux/i386/glibc2.1/uva) to /uva on the host machine. This is done by default on all ITC maintained Unix machines.

Equivalently, in bash users may try:
        export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1; maple

In tcsh this works:
        setenv LD_ASSUME_KERNEL 2.4.1; maple

The environment variable LD_ASSUME_KERNEL may be set in the script resource file if desired.

If you continue to get error messages or have other questions or problems, please contact Research Computing Support via e-mail at res-consult@virginia.edu or by phone at 243-8800. Installation instructions for Linux can be found here.

You can obtain a unix account on the RS/6000 cluster blue.unix from the Accounts webpage. You should log into blue.unix using the X-server software Exceed (available in ITC Public Labs) to establish a graphical interface.

Maple can also be installed locally on a Unix machine instead of mounting the filesystem from the Unix server, although the local copy would still have to communicate with the license manager on-grounds. Users wishing to install Maple locally on any of the Unix platforms listed above should go to the Research Computing Support Center in Wilson Hall 244 to obtain a free copy on CDROM. The disadvantages of a local installation on a Unix host as opposed to mounting Maple from the Unix server are that it would use a large amount of local disk space and that periodic upgrades would require a reinstall locally whereas this is taken care of automatically by ITC on the mounted filesystem.

2. Running Maple (/uva/bin should be part of your PATH variable by default).

Start Maple grahical user interface:

      xmaple

Start Maple w/o motif graphical user interface:

      maple

3. Running Maple remotely

If you are running xmaple on a Unix machine other than the one you originally logged onto (i.e. running it remotely through a telnet connection), you will have to reset the DISPLAY variable on the remote machine to that of the machine you are logged onto. You can determine the value of the local DISPLAY variable by typing,

   echo $DISPLAY

Then set your local machine to allow the display from the remote machine with the command,

   xhost +remote.dept.virginia.edu

Finally, once you are logged onto the remote machine on which you will run Maple, type,

   DISPLAY=machine.local.virginia.edu:0.0;export DISPLAY

where machine.local.virginia.edu is the value returned by the echo command.

Note: If you use the secure shell client slogin to connect to a remote machine, you do not have to reset the remote DISPLAY variable.

4. Running Maple in batch mode.

Maple can be run in a non-interactive (batch) mode with an input file, e.g. maple_script.m, containing the commands which would have been executed in the command window of maple. To submit the job and then be able to logout, use the Unix command,

   nohup maple < maple_script.m > output_file &

and output from the session will be written to a file named output_file. You can run a job at a specified time when the computer is less likely to be loaded down with other tasks using the Unix at command as follows:

   echo "maple < maple_script.m > output_file" | at hh:mm

and the Maple job will run at the specified time hh:mm, e.g. 01:00 for 1 am.

If your job takes more than one hour of cpu time to run, it is strongly suggested that eligible individuals apply for a Research Computing Account.

Access From Windows

Faculty and staff (including graduate students employed as teaching or research assistants) who wish to install Maple on their PC running Windows /98/NT/WIN2K/XP/Windows 2003 Server can come to the Research Computing Support Center in room 244 of Wilson Hall to obtain a copy on CDROM. The installation intstructions are online.

Access From Macs

Faculty and staff (including graduate students employed as teaching or research assistants) who wish to install Maple on their Macintosh can come to the Research Computing Support Center in room 244 of Wilson Hall to obtain a copy on CDROM.

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Getting Help with Maple

The Maple Online Help can be accessed from the Help menu in the Maple graphical user interface or by typing a ? at the Maple prompt, e.g. > ?. The "Introduction" selection of the Help menu will bring up a new Help window within the Maple interface which enables traversing of the online help through successive selection of help categories such as Graphics, Mathematics, Programming, Basic and Advanced Features, etc. Choosing (single click) the "Getting Started" category provides access to Maple's online tutorial, the "New User's Tour". This tutorial is formated as a Maple worksheet and can be used interactively.

Maple contains many packages of subject specific library functions. A listing of these packages can be accessed from the Help window by successively selecting the categories "System", "Libraries and Packages", and "packages".

As part of the Maple site license, all faculty members are eligible to access the MaplePrimes web site at http://www.mapleprimes.com. The electronic version (PDF) of four Maple manuals are downloadable from within the site.

Eligible Maple users at the University of Virginia may contact Research Computing by phone at 243-8800 or by emailing res-consult@Virginia.EDU to get a master Authorization Code to gain access to Mapleprimes at http://www.mapleprimes.com for their first visit. Once they have entered the site, they should then create their own account, complete with personal UserID and Password.

The electronic version (PDF) of the four Maple 10 manuals may be downloaded and printed for personal use or stored as a copy on a personal machine. The available manuals are The Maple Learning Guide, The Maple 10 Getting Started Guide, The Maple 10 Introductory Programming Guide, and The Maple 10 Advanced Programming Guide.

The Maple Getting Started Guide contains an introduction to the graphical user interface and a tutorial that outlines using Maple to solve mathematical problems and create technical documents. In it, there is additional information for new users about the online help system, New User’s Tour, example worksheets, and Waterloo Maple Web site.

The Maple Learning Guide presents methods for numerical and symbolic computations, essential syntax for expression manipulation and finding solutions. Graphics, file input and output and Maplets are also introduced. The Learning Guide places particular emphasis on not only finding solutions but also plotting or animating results and exporting worksheets to other formats.

The Maple Introductory Programming Guide introduces the basic Maple programming concepts, such as expressions, data structures, looping and decisions mechanisms, procedures, input and output, debugging, and Maplets.

The Maple Advanced Programming Guide extends the basic Maple programming concepts to more advanced topics, such as modules, input and output, numerical programming, graphics programming, and compiled code.

These guides (hardcopy) are available for reference in the Research Computing Support Center in Wilson Hall, room 244. These guides can also be ordered from Waterloo Maple through the University Bookstore.

Tutorial Documents

Maple Essentials
Online Maple Tutorial - If you are new to Maple for Windows, then download this free self-paced, hands-on tutorial to get up to speed quickly.

New User's Tour
A Web (non-interactive) version of Maple's on-line tutorial.

Getting Started with Maple
An introduction to Maple produced by the Stat/Math Center at Indiana University.

A Short Introduction to the Maple Language
An Introduction to Maple produced at the University of Kentucky .

Many useful documents in Maple's worksheet format (with .mws extension) are available on the Web and can be accessed from a Web browser by configuring the browser to use Maple as a helper application. Then the Web browser will start Maple automatically when you point to a Maple document. This assumes that Maple is available/installed on the same machine from which you are running the Web browser.

To make Maple a helper application for Netscape 4.73 on the Unix platform, set the following fields after choosing Preferences under the Edit menu, and then Applications under the Navigator category, and then New...

MIMEType: application/maple-v-r4
Suffixes: mws
Application: /uva/bin/xmaple %s

The procedure is the same for netscape on a Windows PC, but using whatever the path is to the local Maple executable. For further information on accessing Maple from the Web, see the document Maple and the WWW .

If Users cannot find the answers to their questions in the online documentation, they can email their questions to ITC Research Computing Support.

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Frequent Questions about Maple

Local FAQ
Frequently asked (or interesting) questions about Maple the have been submitted to ITC.

Waterloo FAQ
Frequently asked questions compiled by the maker of Maple.

Maple Advisor Database
The Maple Advisor Database is a project of the Symbolic Computation Group of the University of British Columbia, and consists of a library of Maple procedures, plus a database of Maple help pages.

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Maple Examples

Maple has a series of example worksheets that can be accessed from the Help window (invoked from the xmaple Help menu and selecting "Introduction") by selecting the category "Example Worksheets" (shown here as a listing). They cover the Maple language and system, algebra, geometry, general numerics and symbolics, differential equations, and graphics, as well as other topics.

Maple Application Center

Maple Powertools
Applications contributed by Maple users.

Maple Student Center
Maple tutorials and material for specific courses.

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Other Maple Resources

MapleTech Journal
Homepage of journal to communicate applications among creators and users of Maple software. Hardcopy of this journal is also available in the Research Computing Support Center.

Maple Newsgroup
Newsgroup devoted to issues involving use of Maple.

Symbolic Math Newsgroup
Newsgroup devoted to issues involving use of symbolic mathematics software generally and Maple specifically.

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