wxmaxima 15.08.2-1 / usr / share / wxMaxima / tips.txt

_("To start using wxMaxima right away, start typing your command. An input cell should appear. Then press Shift-Enter to evaluate your command.")
_("By default Shift-Enter is used to evaluate commands, while Enter is used for multiline input. This behaviour can be changed in 'Edit->Configure' dialog by checking 'Enter evaluates cells'. This switches the roles of these two key commands.")
_("Maxima uses ':' to set values ('a : 3;') and ':=' to define functions ('f(x) := x^2;').")
_("You can access the last output using the variable '%'. You can access the output of previous commands using variables '%on' where n is the number of output.")
_("Maxima supports three types of numbers: exact fractions (they can be generated for example by typing 1/10), IEEE floating-point numbers (0.2) and arbitrary precision big floats (1b-1). Note that, owing to their nature as binary, not decimal numbers, there is for example no way to generate an IEEE floating-point number that exactly reads 0.1.. If floating-point numbers are used instead of fractions Maxima will therefore sometimes have to introduce a (though very small) error and use thinks like 3602879701896397/36028797018963968 for 0.1 introducing a (though very small) error.")
_("If you type an operator (one of +*/^=,) as the first symbol in an input cell, % will be automatically inserted before the operator, as on a graphing calculator. You can disable this feature from the 'Edit->Configure' dialog.")
_("You can insert different types of 'cells' in wxMaxima document using the 'Cell' menu. Note that only 'input cells' can be evaluated, while other are used for commenting and structuring your calculations.")
_("A new document format has been introduced in wxMaxima 0.8.2 that saves not only your input and text commentaries, but also the outputs of your calculations. When saving your document, select 'wxMaxima XML document' format.")
_("Title, section and subsection cells can be folded to hide their contents. To fold or unfold, click in the square next to the cell. If you shift-click, all sublevels of that cell will also fold/unfold.")
_("You can hide output part of cells by clicking in the triangle on the left side of cells. This works on text cells also.")
_("There are many resources about Maxima and wxMaxima on the internet. Visit http://andrejv.github.com/wxmaxima/help.html for more information and to find tutorials on using wxMaxima and Maxima.")
_("You can get help on a Maxima function by selecting or clicking on the function name and pressing F1. wxMaxima will search help index for the selection or the word under the cursor.")
_("A 'horizontal cursor' was introduced in wxMaxima 0.8.0. It looks like a horizontal line between cells. It indicates where a new cell will appear if you type or paste text or execute a menu command.")
_("Horizontal cursor works like a normal cursor, but it operates on cells: press up or down arrow to move it, holding down Shift while moving will select cells, pressing backspace or delete twice will delete a cell next to it.")
_("Selecting a part of output and right-clicking on the selection will bring up a menu with convenient functions that will operate on the selection.")
_("You can select multiple cells either with a mouse - click'n'drag from between cells or from a cell bracket on the left - or with a keyboard - hold down Shift while moving the horizontal cursor - and then operate on selection. This comes in handy when you want to delete or evaluate multiple cells.")
_("You can evaluate your whole document by using 'Cell->Evaluate All Cells' menu command or the appropriate key shortcut. The cells will be evaluated in the order they appear in the document.")
_("If your calculation is taking too long to evaluate, you can try 'Maxima->Interrupt' or 'Maxima->Restart Maxima' menu commands.")
_("To plot in polar coordinates, select 'set polar' in the Options entry for Plot2d dialog. You can also plot in spherical and cylindrical coordinates in 3D.")
_("wxMaxima dialogs set default values for inputs entries, one of which is '%'. If you have made a selection in your document, the selection will be used instead of '%'.")
_("To put parenthesis around an expression, select it, and press '(' or ')' depending on where you want the cursor to appear afterwards.")
_("When applying functions with one argument from menus, the default argument is '%'. To apply the function to some other value, select it in the document before executing a menu command.")
_("To save the size and position of wxMaxima windows between session, use 'Edit->Configure' dialog.")
_("Since wxMaxima 0.8.2 you can also insert images into your documents. Use 'Cell->Insert Image...' menu command. Note that you have to save your document in 'wxMaxima XML document' format if you want the image to be saved along with your document.")
_("Besides the global undo functionality that is active when the cursor is between cells wxMaxima has a per-cell undo function that is active if the cursor is inside a cell. Pressing Ctrl+Z inside a cell can therefore been used for a fine-pitch undo that doesn't affect latter changes made in other cells.")
_("Besides the global undo functionality that is active when the cursor is between cells wxMaxima has a per-cell undo function that is active if the cursor is inside a cell. Pressing Ctrl+Z inside a cell can therefore been used for a fine-pitch undo that doesn't affect latter changes made in other cells.")
_("Pressing Ctrl+Space or Ctrl+Tab starts an autocomplete function that can not only complete all functions that are integrated into the maxima core and their parameters: It also knows about parameters from currently loaded packages and from functions that are defined in the current file.")
_("It is possible to define reusable maxima libraries with wxMaxima that can be later loaded by using the load() function. All that has be done in order to do that is to export a file in the .mac format.")
_("wxMaxima can be made to execute commands at every start-up by placing them in a a text file with the name wxmaxima.rc in the user directory. This directory can be found by typing maxima_userdir")
_("Libraries can be accessed by any wxMaxima process regardless in which directory it runs if they are placed in the user directory. This directory can be found by typing maxima_userdir")