We are currently at the version Maple 13 at Villanova University. Starting with version 9, Maple has split into two interfaces. Both interfaces have the same Maple engine but have very different interfaces and save worksheets in different file formats.

• Standard Maple [preferred]
  The standard interface [red icon] with default worksheet file extension .mw has a clickable calculus interface with a complete range of palettes for creating Mathematical symbols and typesetting mathematical documents, context-sensitive right click menus to perform most of the usual mathematical tasks to the outputs of expressions or equations that we input into Maple, as well as many tools and interface facilitators that make it easy to do many activities without knowing syntax or commands.
• Classic Maple [less powerful interface]
  The classic interface [yellow icon] is a stripped down version of Maple which 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, 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. However, the Outlook webmail used by most Villanova students, and by faculty when they are away from their primary computer, does not allow Maple attachments to be extracted properly (they are saved as empty files) and these files must be zipped before attachment by right clicking on their filename in Windows Explorer and selecting Send to Compressed (zipped)  Folder. However, Maple worksheets attached to Outlook webmail messages are extracted properly from the Outlook client email used by all faculty on their primary computers.

If you do not have Maple installed locally (so you must use Citrix delivered Maple), Windows will not know how to open the worksheet. [You can open the worksheet in WordPad so you see the underlying code and not the GUI interpreted worksheet, which is not very helpful. Maple .mw worksheets are to Maple like .htm documents are to Internet Explorer or any browser, namely just ordinary text files of at first confusing code called XML from which the software creates a screen image that you see.]

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.
  
  In Internet Explorer when you 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 in some email software (but not Outlook or OWA which we are now using), 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 might be saved with file extension ".xml") and then open them using Maple.