Next: Introduction, Up: (dir)

## The wxMaxima user's manual

wxMaxima is a graphical user interface that allows to use all of maxima's functions providing convenient wizards for accessing the most commonly used of them. This manual attempts to describe the unique features that make this program one of the most popular GUIs for maxima.

Next: Extensions, Previous: Top, Up: Top

## 1 Introduction to wxMaxima

### 1.1 Maxima and wxMaxima

In the open-source domain big systems are normally split into smaller projects that are easier to handle for small groups of developers. For example a CD burner program will consist of a command-line tool that actually burns the CD and a graphical user interface that allows the user to use it without having to learn about all the command-line switches and in fact without using the commandline at all. One advantage of this approach is that the developing work that was invested into the command-line program can be shared by many programs without having to re-invent the wheel: The same cd-burner command-line program can be used as a “send-to-cd”-plug-in for a file manager application, for the “burn to CD” function of a music player and as the CD writer for a DVD backup tool. Another advantage is that splitting one big task into smaller parts allows to provide several user interfaces for the same program: A computer algebra system could be be the logic behind a arbitrary precision calculator application, it can do automatic transforms of formulas in the background of a bigger system (e.G. Sage) or actually used as a full-fledged computer algebra system (which is the case with wxMaxima).

#### 1.1.1 Maxima

Maxima is a full-featured computer algebra system (CAS). In other words it is a program specialized in solving mathematical problems by rearranging formulas and finding a formula solving the problem as opposed to just outputting the numeric value of the result.

There is extensive documentation for maxima available in the internet part of which can be found in wxMaxima's help menu. To make access to the documentation easier if the <Help> key is pressed (on most systems that would be the <F1> key) wxmaxima's context-sensitive help feature will automatically jump to maxima's manual page for the command at the cursor.

#### 1.1.2 wxMaxima

wxMaxima is a graphical user interface that provides the full functionality and flexibility of maxima providing the user with a graphical display and many features that make working with maxima easier. For example wxMaxima allows to export any cell's contents (or, if that is needed, any part of a formula, as well) as text, as LaTeX or as MathML specification at a simple right-click.

The calculations itself are done by the maxima command-line tool in the background.

### 1.2 Worksheet basics

Most of wxMaxima should be self-explaining. Therefore this manual will concentrate on describing facts that won't need more time to read about than to be actually explored.

#### 1.2.1 The worksheet approach

One of the very few things that aren't standar ist that wxMaxima organizes the data for maxima in cells that are only evaluated (which means: sent to maxima) when the user requests this. This approach might feel unfamiliar at the first sight. But it drastically eases work with big documents (where the user certainly doesn't want every small change to automatically to trigger a full re-evaluation of the whole document) and is very handy for debugging.

The cells wxMaxima automatically creates on typing some text are maxima input cells that will eventually be sent to maxima.

On evaluation of an input cell's contents the input cell maxima assigns a label to the input (by default shown in red and recognizable by the `%i`) by which it can be referenced lateron. The output maxima generates will be shown in a different style and preceded by maxima by a label beginning with `%o`.

Besides the input cells wxMaxima allows for text cells for documentation, image cells, title cells, chapter cells and section cells; Every cell has it's own undo buffer so debugging by changing the values of several cells and then gradually reverting the unneeded changes is rather easy. Besides this the worksheet itself has a global undo buffer that can undo cell edits, adds and deletes.

#### 1.2.2 Cells

The worksheet is organized in cells that work like very much like the styles word processors offer. Each cell can contain one of the following types of content:

- one or more lines of maxima input
- an image
- a title, section or a subsection
- Output of or a question from maxima
- normal a text block that can for example used for explaining the meaning of the math cell's contents.

By default behavior of wxMaxima if text is input is to automatically create a math cell. Cells of other types can be created using the Cell menu or using the hotkeys shown there.

#### 1.2.3 Horizontal and vertical cursors

While it sometimes is both desirable to allow selecting multiple cells or only part of a cell for export or Drag-and-Drop beginning such an action in the middle of one cell and ending it in the middle of another will most certainly lead to unexpected results.

wxMaxima works around this by defining two types of cursors wxMaxima will switch between automatically when needed:

- A vertical cursor that is able to select any number of whole cells. This cursor is activated by moving the cursor between two cells or by clicking on a space between two cells.
- And a vertical cursor that works inside a cell. This cursor is activated by moving the cursor inside a cell using the mouse pointer or the cursor keys.

As long as the cursor is inside a cell search operations will limit ther scope to the current cell.

#### 1.2.4 Command autocompletion

wxMaxima contains an autocompletion feature that is triggered via the menu (Cell/Complete Word) or alternatively by pressing the key combination <Ctrl>+<k>. The autocompletion is context-sensitive and if activated within an unit specification for ezUnits it will offer a list of applicable units.

Besides completing the current command's or variable's name the autocompletion is able to show a template for most of the commands indicating the type (and meaning) of the parameters this program expects. To activate this feature press <Shift>+<Ctrl>+<k> or select the respective menu item (Cell/Show Template).

#### 1.2.5 Greek characters

Computers traditionally store characters in 8-bit values: This allows for a maximum of 256 different characters and all letters, numbers, and control symbols (end of transmission, end of string, lines and edges for drawing rectangles for menus etc.) of nearly any given language fit there.

For most countries the codepage of 256 characters that has been chosen doesn't include greek letters, though. To overcome this limitation unicode has been invented: A method of including characters that aren't normally used in the english language in a text that (as long as only the basic form of latin characters is used) looks like plain 8-bit ASCII.

Maxima allows for unicode characters if it runs on a lisp that supports them and if the wxWidgets library wxMaxima is built on supports unicode characters, too, wxMaxima can be built with unicode support. In this case it provides a method of entering greek characters:

- An alpha is entered by pressing the <ESC> key and then typing in the character a followed by a press on the <ESC> key.
- A beta is entered by pressing the <ESC> key and then typing in the character b followed by a press on the <ESC> key.
- A gamma is entered by pressing the <ESC> key and then typing in the character c followed by a press on the <ESC> key.
- ...and so on.

If the system does not provide unicode support wxMaxima will still provide a method of showing greek characters: Variable names like “alpha” are always displayed as the corresponding greek symbols.

The lowercase greek letters actually can be entered both by enter a lating letter or the whole latin name of the greek letter followed and preceded by a press of the escape key:

         a alpha    i iota      r rho
         b beta     k kappa     s sigma
         g gamma    l lambda    t tau
         d delta    m mu        u upsilon
         e epsilon  n nu        f phi
         z zeta     x xi        c chi
         h eta      om omicron  y psi
         q theta    p pi        o omega

The same is tue for the uppercase greek letters:

         A Alpha    I Iota      R Rho
         B Beta     K Kappa     S Sigma
         G Gamma    L Lambda    T Tau
         D Delta    M Mu        U Upsilon
         E Epsilon  N Nu        P Phi
         Z Zeta     X Xi        C Chi
         H Eta      Om Omicron  Y Psi
         T Theta    P Pi        O Omega

This mechanism also allows to enter some miscellaneous mathematical symbols:

         2             squared
         3             to the power of three
         /2            1/2
         sq            root
         ii            imaginary
         ee            element
         hb            h barred
         in            in
         impl,implies  implies
         inf           infinity
         empty         empty
         TB            Big triangle right
         tb            small triangle right
         and           and
         or            or
         xor           xor
         nand          nand
         nor           nor
         equiv         equivalent
         not           not
         union         union
         inter         intersection
         subseteq      subset or equal
         subset        subset
         notsubseteq   not subset or equal
         notsubset     not subset

It is to note that a maxima running on a lisp without unicode support might not be able to deal with files that contain special unicode characters.

#### 1.2.6 Side Panes

Shortcuts to the most important maxima commands and a history of the last issued commands can be accessed using the side panes. They can be enabled using the “Panes” entry in the “Maxima” menu.

#### 1.2.7 Markdown support

Markdown in many cases collides with the notations that are frequently used for mathematics. wxMaxima will recognize bullet lists, though, for the HTML and TeX export when the items are marked with stars.

         Ordinary text
          * One item, indentation level 1
          * Another item at indentation level 1
            * An item at a second indentation level
            * A second item at the second indentation level
          * A third item at the first indentation level
         Ordinary text

wxMaxima will also recognize `=>` and replace it by a

         cogito => sum.

Other symbols the markdown parser will recognize are `<=` and `>=` for comparisons, a double-pointed double arrow (`<=>`), single- headed arrows (`<->`, `->` and `<-`) and `+/-` as the respective sign.

#### 1.2.8 Hotkeys

Most hotkeys can be found in the text of the respective menus. Since they are actually taken from the menu text and thus can be customized by the translations of wxMaxima to match the needs of users of the local keyboard there is no usee of documenting them here. There are a few hotkeys or hotkey aliases, though, that aren't documented there:

- `Ctrl+Shift+Delete` deletes a complete cell.
- `Ctrl+Tab` or `Ctrl+Shift` triggers the auto-completion mechanism.
- `Ctrl++` or `Ctrl+-` Zoom in or out.

### 1.3 File Formats

#### 1.3.1 .mac

`.mac` files are ordinary text files that can be read using maxima's read command:

         %i1 read("test.mac");

They can be used for writing own libraries but since they don't contain enough structural information they cannot be read back directly into wxMaxima.

#### 1.3.2 .wxm

`.wxm` files contain the input for maxima, as well as any text cells, title cells and chapter or section cells the user typed in. Pictures and maxima's output aren't saved along with the `.wxm` file, though.

#### 1.3.3 .wxmx

This xml-based file format saves all text and images the work sheet contains. It is the preferred file format now and comes in two flavors:

- Files saved in the version-control friendly `.wxmx` format contain all images in a standard compressed format (`.png`) and a uncompressed copy of the xml tree that contains the structure of the document and the text typed in by the user. Since the images are compressed individually and the text is saved as text a version control system like bazaar, subversion, git or mercurial will only have to save the elements of the file that actually have changed since the last version.
- Files saved in disk space-optimized `.wxmx` format are compressed as a whole. If no version control system is used this will save disk space:
  - The portion of the file that is pure xml data tends to get fundamentally smaller when being compressed
  - and after the compression recurring data like image headers will use up only a fraction of the space they originally did.
  This comes at the cost, though, that the change of even a single line of text in the uncompressed version tends to completely change the structure of the compressed version of a file. A version control system that deals with such a file will - however optimized it might be on handling differences between binary files - will therefore have to track (and to store) a much higher number of differences between two file versions than necessary; Since most version control systems compress the data they store on the server the server space occupied by the initial version of both `.wxmx` flavors should be nearly identical in size.

### 1.4 Configuration options

#### 1.4.1 Default animation framerate

The animation framerate that is used for new animations if the value of wxanimate_framerate isn't changed from the maxima side.

#### 1.4.2 Default plot size for new maxima sessions

After the next start plots embedded into the worksheet will be created with this size if the value of wxplot_size isn't changed by maxima.

#### 1.4.3 Match parenthesis in text controls

This option enables two things:

- If an opening parenthesis, bracket or double quote is entered wxMaxima will insert a closing one after it.
- If text is selected if any of these keys is pressed the selected text will be put between the matched signs.

#### 1.4.4 Autosave interval

If this value is set to a value bigger than zero maxima will work in a more mobile-device-like fashion:

- Files are saved automatically on exit
- And the file will automatically be saved every n minutes.

For the automatic saving functionality to work wxMaxima needs to know a name to save the file with, though. This means this feature will only work if the file has already been saved to or opened from the disk.

Next: Troubleshooting, Previous: Introduction, Up: Top

## 2 Extensions to maxima

wxMaxima aims to be but a graphical user interface for maxima. In some cases it adds functionality to Maxima, though. These cases are described here.

### 2.1 Plotting

Plotting (having fundamentally to do with graphics) is a place where a graphical user interface will have to provide some extensions to the original program.

#### 2.1.1 Embedding a plot into the work sheet

Maxima normally instructs the external program gnuplot to open a separate window for every diagram it creates. Since many times it is convenient to embed graphs into the work sheet instead wxMaxima provides its own set of plot functions that don't differ from the corresponding maxima functions save in their name: They are all prepended by a “wx”. For example `wxplot` corresponds to `plot`, `wxdraw` corresponds to `draw` and `wxhistogram` corresponds to `histogram`.

#### 2.1.2 Making embedded plots bigger or smaller

The configure dialog provides a way to change the default size plots are created with which sets the starting value of wxplot_size. The plotting routines of wxMaxima respect this variable that specifies the size of a plot in pixels. It can always be queried or used to set the size of the following plots:

         %i1 wxplot_size:[1200,800];
         %o1 [1200,800];

         %i2 wxdraw2d(
                 explicit(
                     sin(x),
                     x,1,10
                 )
             )$

If the size of only one plot is to be changed maxima provides a canonical way to change an attribute only for the current cell.

         %i1 wxplot_size:[1200,800];
         %o1 [1200,800];

         %i1 wxdraw2d(
                 explicit(
                     sin(x),
                     x,1,10
                 )
             ),wxplot_size=[1600,800]$

#### 2.1.3 Better quality plots

Gnuplot doesn't seem to provide a portable way of determining is it supports the high-quality bitmap output the cairo library provides. On systems where gnuplot is compiled to use this library the pngcairo option from the configuration menu (that can be overridden by the variable wxplot_pngcairo) enables support for antialiasing and additional line styles.

#### 2.1.4 Embedding animations into the spreadsheet

The `with_slider_draw` command is a version of `wxdraw2d` that does prepare multiple plots and allows to switch between them by moving the slider on top of the screen. If ImageMagick is installed wxMaxima even allows to export this animation as an animated gif.

The first two arguments for `with_slider_draw` are the name of the variable that is stepped between the plots and a list of the values of these variable. The arguments that follow are the ordinary arguments for `wxdraw2d`:

         with_slider_draw(
             f,[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10],
             title=concat("f=",f,"Hz"),
             explicit(
                 sin(2*%pi*f*x),
                 x,0,1
             ),grid=true
         );

The same functionality for 3d plots is accessible as `with_slider_draw3d`.

There is a second set of functions making use of the slider

- `wxanimate_draw` and
- `wxanimate_draw3d`:

         wxanimate_draw(
             a, 3,
             explicit(sin(a*x), x, -4, 4),
             title=printf(false, "a=~a", a));

Normally the animations are played back or exported with the frame rate chosen in the configuration of wxMaxima. To set the speed an individual animation is played back the variable wxanimate_framerate can be used:

         wxanimate(a, 10,
             sin(a*x), [x,-5,5]), wxanimate_framerate=6$

The animation functions have a pitfall that one has to be aware of when using them: The slider variable's value are substituted into the expression that is to be plotted - which will fail, if the variable isn't directly visible in the expression. Therefore the following example will fail:

         f:sin(a*x);
         with_slider_draw(
             a,makelist(i/2,i,1,10),
             title=concat("a=",float(a)),
             grid=true,
             explicit(f,x,0,10)
         )$

If maxima is forced to first evaluate the expression and then asked to substitute the slider's value plotting works fine instead:

         f:sin(a*x);
         with_slider_draw(
             a,makelist(i/2,i,1,10),
             title=concat("a=",float(a)),
             grid=true,
             explicit(''f,x,0,10)
         )$

#### 2.1.5 Opening multiple plot windows contemporarily

While not being a provided by wxmaxima this feature of maxima (on setups that support it) sometimes comes in handily. The following example comes from a post from Mario Rodriguez to the maxima mailing list:

         load(draw);

         /* Parabola in window #1 */
         draw2d(terminal=[wxt,1],explicit(x^2,x,-1,1));

         /* Parabola in window #2 */
         draw2d(terminal=[wxt,2],explicit(x^2,x,-1,1));

         /* Paraboloid in window #3 */
         draw3d(terminal=[wxt,3],explicit(x^2+y^2,x,-1,1,y,-1,1));

### 2.2 Embedding graphics

if the `.wxmx` file format is being used embedding files in a wxMaxima project can be done as easily as per drag-and-drop. But sometimes (for example if an image's contents might change lateron) it is better to tell the file to load the image on evaluation:

         show_image("Mann.png");

### 2.3 wxmaximarc

If the maxima user directory there is a text file named `wxmaxima-init.mac` the contents of the file is passed to maxima automatically every time a new worksheet has been started.

To find out which directory maxima uses as the user directory just type in the following line:

         maxima_userdir;

The answer from Maxima will specify the name of the directory that the startup file can be placed in.

         %o1 /home/username/.maxima

### 2.4 Special variables

- wxfilename This variable contains the name of the file %currently opened in wxMaxima.
- wxplot_pngcairo tells if wxMaxima tries to use gnuplot's pngcairo terminal that provides more line styles and a better overall graphics quality. This variable can be used for reading or overriding the respective setting in the configuration dialog.
- wxplot_size defines the size of embedded plots.
- wxchangedir On most operating systems wxmaxima automatically sets maxima's working directory to the directory of the current file. This will allow file I/O (e.G. by `read_matrix`) to work without specifying the whole path to the file that has to be read or written. On windows this is deactivated, though: The Lisp Standard doesn't contain a concept of the current working directory. Therefore there is no standard way of setting it and changing to a directory that isn't on the drive maxima has been installed to might cause maxima to try to read is own package files from this drive, too, instead of from the drive maxima has been installed to. Setting wxchangedir to `true` tells wxMmaxima that it has to risk that and to set maxima's working directory.
- wxanimate_framerate The number of frames per second the following animations have to be played back with. -1 tells wxMaxima to use the default frame rate from the config dialog.

### 2.5 Pretty-printing 2D output

The function `(table_form)` displays a 2D list in a form that is more readable than the output maxima's default output routine.

         table_form(
             [
                 [1,2],
                 [3,4]
             ]
         )$

### 2.6 Bug reporting

wxMaxima provides a few functions that gather bug reporting information about the current system:

- `wxbuild_info()` gathers information about the currently running version of wxMaxima
- `wxbug_report()` tells how and where to file bugs

Next: FAQ, Previous: Extensions, Up: Top

## 3 Troubleshooting

### 3.1 Cannot connect to Maxima

Since maxima (the program that does the actual mathematics) and wxMaxima (providing the easy-to-use user interface) are separate programs that communicate by the means of a local network connection the most probably case is that this connection is somehow not working. For example a firewall could be set up in a way that it doesn't only prevent against unauthorized connections from the internet (and perhaps to intercept some connections to the internet, too) but also to block inter-process-communication inside the same computer. Note that since maxima is being run by a lisp processor the process communication is blocked from does not necessarily have to be named “maxima”. Common names of the program that opens the network connection would be sbcl, gcl, ccl or similar instead.

On Un*x computers another possible reason would be that the loopback network that provides network connections between two programs in the same computer isn't properly configured.

### 3.2 How to save data from a broken .wxmx file

Internally most modern xml-based formats are ordinary zip-files with one speciality: the first file in the archive is stored uncompressed and provides information about what type of program can open this file.

If the zip signature at the end of the file is still intact after renaming a broken `.wxmx` file to `.zip` most operating systems will provide a way to extract any portion of information that is stored inside it. The can be done when there is the need of recovering the original image files from a text processor document. If the zip signature isn't intact that does not need to be the end of the world: If wxMaxima during saving detected that something went wrong there will be a `wxmx~` file whose contents might help and even if there isn't such a file: If the configuration option is set that `.wxmx` files have to be optimized for version control it is possible to rename the `.wxmx` file to a `.txt` file and to use a text editor to recover the file's contents.

### 3.3 wxMaxima waits forever for data from maxima

This might be caused by the fact that a closing brace, bracket, parenthesis or hyphenation mark is missing: In this case maxima waits until it gets the rest of its input. If that isn't the case the operating system normally provides a way to see if maxima is actually really working forever trying to solve the current problem.

### 3.4 wxMaxima on Windows crashes on displaying seemingly simple equations

The jsMath fonts allow for excellent 2D-display of equations. But there are of broken versions of this package that crash wxMaxima. A working version can be downloaded from http://www.math.union.edu/~dpvc/jsmath/download/jsMath-fonts.html math.union.edu. If this doesn't help jsMath can be deactivated in the Styles tab of wxMaxima's configuration dialogue.

### 3.5 Outputting animations doesn't work

wxMaxima relies on a third-party tool (ImageMagick) to convert animations to the animated gif format. This will obviously only work if this package is installed and known to the system (on windows the path to ImageMagick's `convert.exe` has to be part of the PATH system variable to make the system find it).

Another possible reason of not getting an animated gif is that this image would exceed the format's (or ImageMagick's) capabilities:

- `.gif` files only allow for a maximum of 256 frames
- `.gif` files can not exceed 65535x65535 pixels
- ImageMagick has to have access to enough memory to hold all frames in their uncompressed form.

### 3.6 Plotting only shows an closed empty envelope with an error message

This means that wxMaxima was unable to read the file maxima was supposed to instruct gnuplot to create.

Possible reasons that might cause this are:

- The plotting command is part of a third-party package like `implicit_plot` but this package wasn't loaded by maxima's `load()` command before trying to plot.
- maxima tried to do something the currently installed version of gnuplot isn't able to understand. In this case the file `maxout.gnuplot` in the directory maxima's variable maxima_userdir points to contains the instructions from maxima to gnuplot. Most of the time this file's contents therefore is helpful when debugging the problem.
- Gnuplot was instructed to use the pngcairo library that provides antialiassing and additional line styles. But it wasn't compiled to support this possibility. Solution: Uncheck the "Use the cairo terminal for plot" checkbox in the configuration dialog and don't set wxplot_pngcairo to true from maxima.
- Gnuplot didn't output a valid `.png` file.

### 3.7 Plotting an animation results in “error: undefined variable”

The value of the slider variable by default is only substituted into the expression that is to be plotted if it is visible there. Putting an `ev()` around this expression should resolve this problem.

### 3.8 I lost a cell contents and undo doesn't remember

There are separate undo functions for cell operations and for changes inside of cells so chances are low that this ever happens. If it does there are several methods to recover data:

- wxMaxima actually has two undo features: The global undo buffer that is active if no cell is selected and a per-cell undo buffer that is active if the cursor is inside a cell. It is worth trying to use both undo options in order to see if an old value can still be accessed.
- If you still have a way to find out what label maxima has assigned to the cell just type in the cell's label and it's contents will reappear.
- If you don't: Don't panic. In the “maxima” menu there is a way to show a history pane that shows all maxima commands that have been issued recently.
- If nothing else helps maxima contains a replay feature:

                %i1 playback();

### 3.9 wxMaxima starts up with the message “Maxima process Terminated.”

One possible reason is that maxima cannot be found in the location that is set in the “maxima” tab of wxMaxima's configuration dialog and therefore won't run at all. Setting the path to a working maxima binary should fix this problem.

### 3.10 Maxima is forever calculating and not responding to input

It is theoretically possible that wxMaxima doesn't realize that maxima has finished calculating and therefore never gets informed it can send new data to maxima. If this is the case “Trigger evaluation” might resynchronize the two programs.

### 3.11 File I/O from maxima doesn't work on Windows

On windows File I/O isn't relative to the directory of the current file by default. If you store the maxima file on the drive wxMaxima is installed to setting wxchangedir to `true` will fix that for `load`, `read_list`, `batch`, `read_matrix`, `save` and all similar commands.

Setting this variable to `true` might have a drawback, though: Maxima knows which directory it is installed in and will search for any additional package that is requested by a `load` command in this directory, too. But it might not know which drive it is installed on. If wxchangedir is `true` and the current file is saved on a different drive than the one maxima is installed on maxima therefore might fail to load the additional packages it was bundled with.

### 3.12 Input sometimes is sluggish/ignoring keys on Ubuntu

Installing the package `ibus-gtk` should resolve this issue. See (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/wxwidgets3.0/+bug/1421558) for details.

### 3.13 wxMaxima halts when maxima processes greek characters or Umlaute

If your maxima is based on sbcl the following lines have to be added to your `.sblrc`:

         (setf sb-impl::default-external-format :utf-8)

The location this file has to be put in order to be found by sbcl is system- and installation-specific. But any sbcl-based maxima that already has evaluated a cell in the current session will happily tell where it can be found after getting the following command:

         :lisp (sb-impl::userinit-pathname)

Next: CommandLine, Previous: Troubleshooting, Up: Top

## 4 FAQ

### 4.1 Is there a way to make more text fit on a pdfLaTeX page?

There is: Just add the following lines to the LaTeX preamble (for example by using the respective field in the config dialog):

         \usepackage[a4paper,landscape,left=1cm,right=1cm,top=1cm,bottom=1cm]{geometry}

Previous: FAQ, Up: Top

## 5 Command-line arguments

Most operating systems provide less complicated ways of starting programs than the command line so this possibility is only rarely used. wxMaxima still provides some command line switches, though.

- -v or –version: Output the version information
- -h or –help: Output a short help text
- -o or –open: Open the filename given as argument to this command-line switch
- -b or –batch: If the command-line opens a file all cells in this file are evaluated and the file is saved afterwards. This is for example useful if the sesson described in the file makes maxima generate output files. Batch-processing will be stopped if wxMaxima detects that maxima has output an error and will pause if maxima has a question: Mathematics is somewhat interactive by nature so a completely interaction-free batch processing cannot always be guaranteed.
- (Only on windows): -f or –ini: Use the init file that was given as argument to this command-line switch

Instead of a minus some operating systems might use a dash in front of the command-line switches.

## Short Contents

- The wxMaxima user's manual
- 1 Introduction to wxMaxima
- 2 Extensions to maxima
- 3 Troubleshooting
- 4 FAQ
- 5 Command-line arguments

## Table of Contents

- The wxMaxima user's manual
- 1 Introduction to wxMaxima
  - 1.1 Maxima and wxMaxima
    - 1.1.1 Maxima
    - 1.1.2 wxMaxima
  - 1.2 Worksheet basics
    - 1.2.1 The worksheet approach
    - 1.2.2 Cells
    - 1.2.3 Horizontal and vertical cursors
    - 1.2.4 Command autocompletion
    - 1.2.5 Greek characters
    - 1.2.6 Side Panes
    - 1.2.7 Markdown support
    - 1.2.8 Hotkeys
  - 1.3 File Formats
    - 1.3.1 .mac
    - 1.3.2 .wxm
    - 1.3.3 .wxmx
  - 1.4 Configuration options
    - 1.4.1 Default animation framerate
    - 1.4.2 Default plot size for new maxima sessions
    - 1.4.3 Match parenthesis in text controls
    - 1.4.4 Autosave interval
- 2 Extensions to maxima
  - 2.1 Plotting
    - 2.1.1 Embedding a plot into the work sheet
    - 2.1.2 Making embedded plots bigger or smaller
    - 2.1.3 Better quality plots
    - 2.1.4 Embedding animations into the spreadsheet
    - 2.1.5 Opening multiple plot windows contemporarily
  - 2.2 Embedding graphics
  - 2.3 wxmaximarc
  - 2.4 Special variables
  - 2.5 Pretty-printing 2D output
  - 2.6 Bug reporting
- 3 Troubleshooting
  - 3.1 Cannot connect to Maxima
  - 3.2 How to save data from a broken .wxmx file
  - 3.3 wxMaxima waits forever for data from maxima
  - 3.4 wxMaxima on Windows crashes on displaying seemingly simple equations
  - 3.5 Outputting animations doesn't work
  - 3.6 Plotting only shows an closed empty envelope with an error message
  - 3.7 Plotting an animation results in “error: undefined variable”
  - 3.8 I lost a cell contents and undo doesn't remember
  - 3.9 wxMaxima starts up with the message “Maxima process Terminated.”
  - 3.10 Maxima is forever calculating and not responding to input
  - 3.11 File I/O from maxima doesn't work on Windows
  - 3.12 Input sometimes is sluggish/ignoring keys on Ubuntu
  - 3.13 wxMaxima halts when maxima processes greek characters or Umlaute
- 4 FAQ
  - 4.1 Is there a way to make more text fit on a pdfLaTeX page?
- 5 Command-line arguments