E F L P R S   website, discussed version: 17 (described packages are not fully compatible with later versions)

Installation

• Important: all folders that you plan to access from inside the Maple must contain no spaces or other special symbols.
• Uninstall unneeded versions.
• Run installer. If asked, choose no bat-file run.
• Activate by a purchase code or copy license.dat to the program license folder.
• The program maple.exe tries to take control over network connections – block it. If not done by OS during the first run, add maple.exe to Windows Firewall Inbound rules.
• Configure Tools/Options. The configuration file is here. Here are my favorite settings:
  • General: disable updates and MapleCloud.
  • Display: Maple Notation for Input display, hide equation labels.
  • Interface: Open hyperlinks in New Tab, default format is Worksheet, disable Quick Help.
  • Precision: Limit expression length to 50000.
• Install additional packages. See Applications section below.
• Create the initialization file (maple.ini) and copy it to your root user folder. Delete such file from the program Users folder, because that file has a preference. Here is my maple.ini, which in particular defines special folders used by the described below packages:
  • UserConfigurationFolder – path to user configuration files;
  • ModulesFolder – path to modules not installed as packages;
  • RootDataFolder – data are searched starting from and referenced relative to this folder;
  • TemporaryFilesFolder – temporary files are stored here.
• Create worksheet styles and copy them to a permanent-name folder (like this). Here is my default style: styleset_default.mw.

Applications

Note that BasicTools package is required for all the applications listed here.

Packages (use Check4Updates command):

• BasicTools – miscellaneous routines lacking in standard Maple distribution
• SSH – supports SSH network protocol via PuTTY or similar client
• FiniteGroups – manipulation with finite groups
• PointGroups – in-depth manipulation with point groups
• RandomWalk – few routines related to a random walk problem
• MolMod – molecular and crystal modeling
• AstroTools – miscellaneous routines for an amateur astronomer

Poorly documented packages and modules:

• ALPS – provides interface to ALPS for extended Hubbard model

Examples:

• ALPS example on Ising model: Maple worksheet only, whole working folder
• Producing eps- and pdf-figures using PSTricks: example, tex-output, pdf-output

See also Maple Application Center.

Tips and tricks

• Maple bugs and problems.
• Use option hfloat.
• Don't use add command with Matrices.
• For editing standalone Maple code use any text editors with syntax highlighting. I use PSPad, see details here (I store Maple code in text files with the extension ini).
• If you get error "Cannot find maple engine library maple.dll" add C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Intel\Shared Libraries\redist\intel64\compiler to Windows PATH.
• Comparison of Maple 14 and Mathematica 7: 1) any difference is of personal favor only; 2) Maple has Fortran-like programming language while Mathematica offers sophisticated constructions; 3) Maple seems to be more reliable in numerical computations while Mathematica looks better in manipulations with symbolic expressions.

My programming style guide

• Commonly used keyword arguments:
  • printout::boolean – print information during command execution
  • printnot::boolean – do not print it
  • digits::posint – for printout
  • output::string – specify what to return as comma separated or single-character encoded string
  • noerror::boolean – do not raise error
  • overwrite::boolean – overwrite files without a notice

updated 13.12.2019