There are two ways of directly entering math into MaplePrimes. The first is the <maple> tag. Any text between <maple></maple> tags will be interpreted as Maple syntax and be replaced with a 2D GIF image of that syntax.

There has been active threads on easy ways to post Maple or math specific content - e.g. code snippets, good looking math, plots etc. This Web site will definitely be less effective if people are forced into cumbersome processes to put what most of us would consider to be "fundamental" information into their postings.

Theory has it that Maple is good at producing HTML code. For the original application that it was intended - i.e. creating self-contained Web pages, it works pretty well. Can this theory be extended to cover our MaplePrimes beta application. How easy is it to use Maple as the authoring environment to express some math and to do a plot and general HTML code that is useful for MaplePrimes? 

In some applications it is necessary to map an angle to a range of 0 to 360 degrees. Adding 360 degrees to an angle, or subtracting 360 from an angle does not change actually change the angle. One way to do this would be to add (or subtract) enough multiples of 360 degrees until the angle falls between 0 and 360. For example, given an angle of 400 you would subtract 360 to get an angle of 40 degrees. In Maple, this is easily accomplished by the following function.

Frem := (x,y) -> x - y*floor(x/y);

Maple's syntax is very intuitive and not complicated. The best way to learn how to use Maple is to take The New User's Tour . The New User's Tour presents the fundamental Maple commands that every user should be aware of. The tour covers many areas of Maple, including: The Maple Worksheet Environment, Numerical Calculations, Algebraic Computations, Graphics, Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Finance and Statistics, Programming, and Online Help. The tour is easy to proceed through, and it can take up to two hours if all topics are examined. In order to start The New User's Tour you should go to Help --> New User's Tour .