Printer Friendly
The Free Library
5,677,581 articles and books
Member login
User name  
Password 
 
Join us Forgot password?

Maplets.


Waterloo Maple Waterloo Maple Inc. is a privately held Canadian software company, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario. It is best known as the manufacturer of the Maple computer algebra system. Corporate History
Waterloo Maple Inc.
. c2002. Add-on package for Maple 7. Available for download from www.mapleprimes.com. Free for Maple customers who subscribe to Verb 1. subscribe to - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day"
subscribe, take

buy, purchase - obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company";
 Waterloo Maple's Extended Maintenance Plan. SA

There are many powerful mathematics software packages available today that can do much more than even sophisticated graphing calculators. However, one of the problems with using these packages is the user interface. Maple, like other math software, is based around a text-based command line interface where the user types mathematical expressions and the software returns a response. The issue lies in the power of these packages; as the software becomes more flexible and capable, the list of commands becomes longer and the command-line interface becomes more complex and difficult to learn. This is not as great an issue for frequent users as it is for casual users. Maplets provides a partial solution to this dilemma. Maplets enables you to build dialogue boxes and point-and-click user interfaces to functions within Maple. For example, a teacher could quickly build a user interface to some functions in Maple that help students explore a topic, without the students ever having to know the Maple command language. Maplets are quite easy to create and can range from simple dialogue boxes for entering numbers and expressions to complex interfaces with graphs, sliders sliders

a species of tortoise kept as pets. They have a black shell and a red stripe behind the eye. Called also Chrysemys scripta elegans, red-eared sliders.
, check boxes, and drop-down menus.

The Maplets package is essentially an extension to the Maple command language. You create Maplets using these extensions to Maple and other users can then run them within Maple. While Maplets use Java technology, they are not stand-alone Java applets (i.e., like those you can create with Geometer's Sketchpad Sketchpad - A program that allowed users to draw on a screen with a light pen. It supported constraints (e.g. drawing a constrained ellipse produced a circle). It also had some computer aided design features (e.g. computing loads on beams). ); Maplets still require Maple to run on a computer. However, it does not require any knowledge of Java to create new Maplets.

Maplets is available for download to Maple customers who subscribe to Waterloo Maple's Extended Maintenance Plan and includes the Java Runtime Environment The combination of the Java Virtual Machine, the core class library and supporting files, all of which are required to run a Java program. See Java and Java Virtual Machine.  1.2.2 (I experienced problems when trying to run Maplets with JRE See Java Runtime Environment.

JRE - Java Run-Time Environment
 1,3 or 1.4, although Waterloo says it should work with both of these). I recommend Maplets to existing Maple customers who want to expand the use of Maple to a wider range of students. Thomas Downey Thomas Downey could refer to:
  • Thomas Edward Downey (1884-1961), Major League Baseball player.
  • Thomas Joseph Downey (born 1949), former US Representative from New York.
, Math Teacher, Rivers School, Weston, MA
COPYRIGHT 2002 Kliatt
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2002, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

 Reader Opinion

Title:

Comment:



 

Article Details
Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Author:Downey, Thomas J.
Publication:Kliatt
Article Type:Young Adult Review
Date:May 1, 2002
Words:370
Previous Article:Feinstein, John. The last amateurs; playing for glory and honor in Division. 1 college basketball.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)(Brief...
Next Article:The New Book of Knowledge Online, v.2.(E-book Review)(Brief Review)



Related Articles
Coping for Capable Kids.
Read all about it.(electronic books)(Brief Article)
THE CREATIVITY HANDBOOK: A Visual Arts Guide for Parents and Teachers.(Review)
Online Booksellers.
Follow the ebook road: ebooks in Australian public libraries.(electronic books)
Maple 8.(Product/Service Evaluation)
eBook central takes a classic approach to handheld literature: 'perpetual' licensing permits handheld-equipped schools to buy once and distribute...
MacHale, D.J. The Quillan Games.(young adult book)(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
Na, An. Wait for me, a novel.(young adult book)(Young adult review)(Book review)
Melling, O.R. The summer king.(young adult book)(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)

Terms of use | Copyright © 2009 Farlex, Inc. | Feedback | For webmasters | Submit articles