Installation instructions for the Maple Advisor Database

Make a new folder (directory) named advisor anywhere on your computer.

Go to the database for the release of Maple that you have. Download the files maple.hdb , maple.ind and maple.lib into this folder. Caution: do not put them in Maple's own lib folder, as that would overwrite the files that contains Maple's own library and help pages.

Include the advisor folder in libname . This can be done by a command such as the following, which can be placed in the Maple initialization file ( .mapleinit in your home directory for Unix systems, maple.ini for Windows):

libname:= `c:/maplev/advisor`, libname:

(change this to the actual path name for the advisor folder). You can also change libname using the -b option in the command you use to start Maple, e.g.

xmaple -b /home/myname/advisor -b /usr/local/maple/lib

(note that in this method you need to specify the path to Maple's own lib folder as well).

Note for Windows users: maple.ini is NOT the same as maplev4.ini, maplev5.ini, maple6.ini, etc. or maplesys.ini, which are Windows initialization files. The file maple.ini contains only Maple commands, and if you haven't created one yet you probably won't have one. Produce it with any text editor (e.g. Notepad or Wordpad), being sure to save it as text rather than any fancy format such as rtf, and put it either in the folder that is current when you start Maple, or in Maple's bin (or bin.wnt) folder.

One way to access the help database in Maple's worksheet interface is using "Full Text Search" from the Help menu. On the "Word(s)" line, type a few words having to do with your problem or question, and click the "Search" button. In particular, if Maple gives you an error message and you want some explanation of the error, type the error message into the "Word(s)" line. A list of help pages containing some of these words appears under "Matching Topics". Click on one of these and then on the "OK" button.

Alternatively, look at the help page ?advisor which contains an index to the database.

If you prefer not to download the entire database, you can download individual help pages as .mws (worksheet) files, and procedures as .txt (text source) and .m (library) files. Again, I would recommend that you create a separate advisor folder and place the files there. Include this folder in libname as indicated above. The .m files should then be accessible with readlib . You can access the .mws files as ordinary worksheets, or save them to your own help database. To do the latter, first open the file as a worksheet, and choose "Save to Database..." in Maple's Help menu. Ignore any "could not lock help file" error messages that may pop up. Enter a title for the page under "Topic" (no spaces allowed). Enter the path for the advisor folder under "Database:", or click on it if it is already shown under "Writable databases in 'libname'". Then click on "Save Current" to create the help page.

Maple Advisor Database R. Israel 1998