How hard would it be for an expert maple user (or small group of same), cognizant of LaTeX and TeX, to improve Maple's `latex` command? What is there? `latex`, `latex/latex/Typeset`, LaTeX:-ExportInert ? Is there much more? I'm just talking about the latex() command, for expressions. Fixing LaTeX export of full worksheets looks to be less feasible -- because it uses some different hidden mechanism, has much more that's broken, is weird in its use of the style file, and might need far more effort. acer

For those who are interested, ToInert and FromInert allow pretty much the same sort of programmatic inspection and manipulation of expression trees. Except that ToInert and FromInert, which are provided as part of Maple itself, can do more. They can also handle procedures, more datastructures such as tables, rare (at the top-level) objects of type SDMPolynom, etc. acer

What sort of functionality would this give over and above what ToInert & FromInert give? acer

You might start out by ready the help-page that comes up in Maple when you enter this, ?external_calling After that, you might follow the pages referenced at its end, in its "See Also" section. acer

I never found the help for InstallerBuilder to be very useful. It's not very full, especially concerning what appears to be ability for scripting. What I have had success with is the InstallerBuilder:-Interactive() routine. However, what I've used it for in the past is simply to "Add" files (there's a button for that). I add files, specifying where it is to grab them from, and where it is to install them when run. It outputs a single .mla file, which contains all the bundled files. When this .mla is opened in the GUI, a maplet gets run, with a few panels, just like an installer. The bundled files may contain other .mla files, .hdb files, example worksheets, dynamic/shared libraries, etc. Once or twice, I've had it create and bundle its own uninstaller, too. I suspect that it was designed, originally, for 3rd party MapleConnect products, so that authors could create their own installers. I don't know if it's still used. One thing that I find interesting, is that Maple seems to find directories like /toolbox/XXXX/lib and /toolbox/XXXX/bin. and append libname and PATH with them automatically. Does this not make such locations ideal for placing user-authored packages, especially when bundled/redistributed for others? I also find interesting the idea that a .mla archive may be autoexecuting in some way. Something clearly gets created, which does the work. So, if the InstallerBuilder is not to taste, I wonder whether one could find and utilize the tech behind it regardless. acer

The .mla maple archive format itself supports some of what you mention. It can contain more than just .m files. It can contain image files, other .mla archives. Maybe any other file, I think. A .mla archive can also be set to execute and unpack files, with a popup progress maplet, when opened in the GUI. See ?InstallerBuilder . Or run InstallerBuilder:-Interactive() . acer

Sure, the bad behaviour might be on the part of the webmail system. But a compressed worksheet format might sidestep it nicely. Thanks for your details, acer

Sure, the bad behaviour might be on the part of the webmail system. But a compressed worksheet format might sidestep it nicely. Thanks for your details, acer

Thanks for the information, Scott. But it doesn't sound so promising. It'd be reasonable to surmise that this has been known for quite some time already. acer

If that explanation is accurate (and it does sound plausible) then there may be a great many other users who also experience the problem. If that's so then it'd be well worth fixing. acer

If that explanation is accurate (and it does sound plausible) then there may be a great many other users who also experience the problem. If that's so then it'd be well worth fixing. acer

That's very interesting. Now all that I wonder is why I get plotting error in the maplenet client, when I try to follow the link in the posting. (I could download the .mw,.. but I wanted to try the viewer.) I get a little pop-up, whose "details" show a lot of java exception messages. Is there a certain recommended jvm version to have for this? Right now, my Linux machine says, $ which java /usr/local/java/j2sdk1.4.2/jre/bin/java acer

Hello Jacques, Could you give a reference to that algorithm? Would it suffice to use LinearAlgebra:-Nullspace in the usual way, for each eigenvalue? acer

Hello Jacques, Could you give a reference to that algorithm? Would it suffice to use LinearAlgebra:-Nullspace in the usual way, for each eigenvalue? acer

Another benefit of having large projects' maple source in text files is that one can run mint against them. That is a syntax and code analyzer for maple. See ?mint for the help-page. On Windows it's called wmint.exe , and allows one to browse, select, and open a test source file. (Often the extension .mpl is used for such files.) The mint program may not be as up-to-date as it could be, but it's still useful. acer