mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

["Bill Page" <address@hidden>]

Hi Even,

I have used Maple for a long time and I am regularly a part
of the Maple beta test group. The most recent version of
Maple is release 9. I am not sure if it is actually shipping
yet. Maple release 9 includes many enhancements intended to
assist "open" integration of Maple with other software. No,
Maple is not (at least not yet) open source. But most of the
Maple source code itself, e.g. many of the library subroutines
used for printing can be displayed and/or modified if you
know where to look.

In release 9 there is a dynamic link library called
OpenMaple that is specifically intended to make interface
with programs like Texmacs. The distribution includes
some very useful examples. I have done a few preliminary
experiments with OpenMaple as part of the recent beta
test. I think you would find programming with this new API
much easier than trying to interface with the text version
of Maple. 

I agree that very often the MapleSoft company is not very
forth coming with information and help with internal
aspects of Maple. There is however a very active,
knowledgeable and open minded group of Maple users who
would welcome more opennes and options like using Texmacs
in an efficent manner. If you contact them rather than
Maplesoft directly, I think you will find a much better
response. You might like to contact

  Carl Devore [address@hidden]

to ask about this Maple Experts group.

I would be quite interested in working with you to
produce a new version of the Maple interface to work
with Texmacs and release 9 of Maple using the new
OpenMaple library. Of course there is the issue that
the new versions of Maple are rather too expensive for
many users who are used to getting most things for free
(plus a little sweat some times <grin>). But I think
there will be a lot of cases where institutions and
students ("special" academic pricing) will have Maple
9 available. I think it would be great to have a really
good mathematical document preparation program like
Texmacs also available. In my opinion, in spite of
attempts by Maplesoft to improve the quality of the
native Maple interface, it still falls far short of
a document preparation system. As a result most people
do not actually publish documents that have been
prepared directly from the Maple worksheets. I think
that this will remain true even in the newest release.

Let me know how or if you would like to proceed.

Cheers,
Bill Page.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian EVEN [mailto:address@hidden] 
> Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 10:56 AM
> To: Charles James Leonardo Quarra Cappiello
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: maple session support?
> 
> 
> Le Mercredi 10 Septembre 2003 03:09, Charles James Leonardo 
> Quarra Cappiello a 
> écrit :
> > Hi ,
> >
> > Assuming its possible to support maple as a interactive 
> session, now 
> > the question would be; supposing someone wanted to add this 
> support, 
> > what steps should do that person? :)
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* 
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> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
>       I have built two different versions of an interface 
> which allows maple sessions under TeXmacs under LINUX/Unix. 
> 
>       The first only works if maple can run with the option 
> -l l in a shell : it  evaluates maple input that are beetween 
> flags like
> \begin{mapleinput}
> 1+1;
> \end{mapleinput}
> 
> It is then possible to make help or plot commands. This 
> interface is quite O.K,  but difficult to improve and
> unfornately does'nt work with the latest version of maple,
> because this required -l l option produces a bug with 
> C-libraries.
> 
>       The other should works quite correctly a priori with 
> any version of maple, but there is still some little bugs,
> for example with the help command, and I have not yet
> implemented the possibility to produces plots. I hope my
> other activities will let me soon some time to perfect it
> and make it more satisfactory (I wouldn't refuse any help
> to do it). Nevertheless I use it currently for my mathematical
> computations. 
> 
>       The both interfaces are more or less fragile and rather 
> difficult to perfect because they are based on tricks to go
> round the fact that the source code of the printing procedure
> of Maple is not available;  despite the mails that Joris and
> me sent to the maple team to obtain it : they don't seem even
> to consider it merits an answer.
> 
>       If you are interested to get my interfaces,  tell me  
> and I will take care. 
> --------------------------------
> Christian EVEN
> 
>