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MapleNet 10 - great promise, but who’s got time?

By Murray Bourne, 24 Jul 2005

Maple have released an interesting add-on which is supposed to provide "interactive math over the Web".

MapleNet works by creating a document using Maple 10 and then embedding it within an HTML page and publishing it on a MapleNet server. This gives java applets that the user can interact with by changing parameters. The resulting screenshots look similar to the LiveMath interactive documents that I use on Interactive Mathematics.

When I went to try one of the demos, it began loading the java applets and after a few minutes I got sick of waiting and started to write this post. Then it froze up my browser (Firefox). I tried again using that other browser (IE) and this time it asked me if I wanted to install some component. I agreed, the applet indicated that it loaded fully, but nothing appeared for a long time. Eventually I could see the graphs and could change parameters.

You can try it yourself here: http://www.maplesoft.com/products/maplenet/. [Currently it's version 15.]

While LiveMath doesn't have the flexibility of this MapleNet, file sizes are smaller and it is less clunky. But Maple is huge, so I guess this product will become more mainstream. Can't say I am impressed so far...

Stop press The second demo I tried to access using IE froze the browser. Hmmm - I'm even less impressed.

See the 2 Comments below.

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Comment Preview

HTML: You can use simple tags like <b>, <a href="...">, etc.

To enter math, you can can either:

  1. Use simple calculator-like input in the following format (surround your math in backticks, or qq on tablet or phone):
    `a^2 = sqrt(b^2 + c^2)`
    (See more on ASCIIMath syntax); or
  2. Use simple LaTeX in the following format. Surround your math with \( and \).
    \( \int g dx = \sqrt{\frac{a}{b}} \)
    (This is standard simple LaTeX.)

NOTE: You can mix both types of math entry in your comment.

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