Starting with version 9, Maple has split into two interfaces. Both interfaces have the same Maple engine but use JAVA differently and save worksheets in different file formats. We are currently at Maple 10, but Maple 11 will be introduced Summer 2007.

• Standard Maple [preferred]
  The standard interface [red icon] preloads JAVA and is more memory intensive, with default worksheet file extension .mw that cannot be read by previous versions of Maple or (100% correctly) by the classic interface.
• Classic Maple [less powerful interface]
  The classic interface [yellow icon] only loads JAVA when the internal JAVA applets are called by the new Calculus Tutor commands, for example, or the interactive JAVA plot window, and its worksheet file extension is .mws  and can be read by versions 5 through 10 (and by the standard interface) although some innovations along the way are ignored. It lacks the extensive additional tools of the standard interface.

We should be using the standard interface here at Villanova which allows users to create 2-dimensional mathematics expressions in standard mathematical notation seen in textbooks. When these expressions are entered into Maple and evaluated, they produce output which can then be acted upon by right-click menus, allowing most elementary needs to be accomplished without knowing the command syntax (which can also be entered character by character as seen in Maple codes in textbooks which assume the classic interface). This new philosophy is called "clickable calculus".

Learn more about the Classic vs. Standard Interface.

WYSIWYG input, palettes, right click menus
With Standard Maple (.mw files), a variable width left frame in the Maple application window has numerous expanding palettes to insert input in standard math notation (Maple 2d notation as opposed to Maple 1d notation, i.e., Maple commands) into the input regions that makes it very attractive to use now for students and instructors, since one only needs to be able to do standard Windows clicking, tabbing and choosing to achieve most of the goals needed for the calculus, differential equations and linear algebra sequence. Right clicking on output expressions offers a long list of choices of operations one can apply to that expression. The Tools Menu also exists only in the standard interface, gathering together for easy access all the extremely useful interactive tutorial applets commands and example task worksheets for calculus and linear algebra.

Opening worksheets on the web and email attachments

If you have Maple delivered through your Windows operating system as a local or networked application (faculty members, UNIT public sites, some computer classrooms), other programs like web mail (attachments) or Internet Explorer (URL links on web pages) will know how to open it as a Maple worksheet automatically through its file extension.

If you do not, it may automatically open the worksheet in WordPad so you see the underlying code and not the GUI interpreted worksheet. [Maple worksheets are to Maple like .htm documents are to Internet Explorer, namely just ordinary text files of at first confusing code called XML from which the software creates a screen image.]

To open the file with Maple, you may have two options:

• Save the file and open it outside the application by then opening Maple and using the File Menu Open File command to find it, which it can only do if the file has the correct file extension.
• In Internet Explorer, copy the URL of the linked worksheet and then open Maple and use the File Menu Open URL command to directly open the file from the internet, which is much quicker than first saving locally the file. You should then save it locally if you make changes.
  
  Standard Worksheets in either environment open as text files with WordPad unfortunately, and in Internet Explorer when you instead right click on the link to save them, the file extension might change to .xml so one must instead choose file type "all files" and add the file extension ".mw" or Maple will not "see" the file when you try to open it using the File Menu, Open selection in Maple.

Aside: Our VU webmaster had to set the correct MIME types for .mw and .mws file extensions in order for Maple to be invoked on links to worksheets on its servers:

Data type description: Maple Classic Worksheet
MIME-type: application/x-Maple
Suffix or file extension: .mws

Data type description: Maple Standard Worksheet
MIME-type: application/x-Maple
Suffix or file extension: .mw

If you are using Citrix supplied Maple through the web [i.e., not as a local windows operating system application] and choose to save a file locally, then you must save worksheets from the web to your C:\ drive or to a  local networked folder and open them separately in Maple. Citrix does not see your local My Documents folder or your Desk Top; its own My Documents and Desk Top folders are on the remote server under your user profile.

Attachments for Standard Maple worksheets may end up visible in the text message itself, since the XML code in which they are written is related to HTML which is also shown in the text message. One can still always right-click on the attachment file icon and save attached Maple files locally on your hard drive or on a local network folder (Save Target AS, select "All Files" and put in explicitly the file extension ".mw" or it will be saved with file extension ".xml") and then open them using Maple.