Ease of Use Enhancements - Maple Help

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 Ease of Use Enhancements

New updates and enhancements in ease of use:

 • Autocomplete in 2-D Math
 • Enhanced Search and Replace
 • Improved Subscript Handling
 • Reclaiming the Use of the Names 'I', 'D', 'gamma', and More

Maple has always been a pioneer in math software usability, and continually strives to ensure that new and occasional users are immediately productive while experienced users have the tools and flexibility they need to work efficiently. Maple 17 features advancements for our intuitive Clickable Math tools, including major updates in one-step app creation, as well as changes that help to improve the user experience within our programmatic interface.  In Maple 17, typing commands has never been easier with autocomplete in 2-D math.  Search and replace has been enhanced to search for names inside 2-D math expressions. Maple 17 also makes entering subscripts more intuitive and unlocks various desirable variable names  for use in your calculations.

 Autocomplete in 2-D Math When typing command and function names in 2-D Math, Maple now offers quick completions for items that are unambiguous. When such an item is available, it will appear as a yellow tooltip-style popup. Pressing the Tab or Return/Enter key will insert the suggested item.
 Enhanced Search and Replace Search and replace functionality now extends into 2-D Math expressions for simple names. For example, searching for 'x' will find the x in the first term of the 2D expression x^2-y+10.

Improved Subscript Handling

There are two types of subscripts in Maple:

 • Literal subscripts are a part of the variable name itself, and are not interpreted as an index of any kind.
 • Index subscripts are a direct index reference to an element stored in an array or vector.

Maple 17 features improvements to how subscripts are entered in both of these cases, and well as removes the need to enter a backslash in order to explicitly create underscore characters in variable names.

 • To create a literal subscript, type the base name followed by two underscores, followed by the subscript.  For example, 'a', '_', '_', 'b'.
 > $\mathrm{a__b}$
 ${\mathrm{a__b}}$ (3.1)
 • To create an indexed subscript, use the key sequence Ctrl-Shift-underscore (Command-Shift-underscore on Mac OS X) or surround the subscript with square brackets.
 > ${a}_{b}$
 ${{a}}_{{b}}$ (3.2)
 • To enter an underscore, simply type the underscore key on your keyboard.
 > $\mathrm{a_b}$
 ${\mathrm{a_b}}$ (3.3)

Reclaiming the Use of the Names 'I', 'D', 'gamma', and More

Maple's long history and extensive math library have invariably claimed some names that you may want to use for something else. For example, the capital letter 'I' in Maple means the imaginary unit, but why not the identity matrix instead?  Similarly, after defining variables, A, B, and C, why can't you continue the pattern and use D? In Maple 17 you can.

 >
 ${I}{:=}\left[\begin{array}{rr}{1}& {0}\\ {0}& {1}\end{array}\right]$ (4.1)
 > $2\cdot I$
 $\left[\begin{array}{rr}{2}& {0}\\ {0}& {2}\end{array}\right]$ (4.2)
 >
 > $\mathrm{D}+\mathrm{D}$
 ${10}$ (4.3)