A Detailed Look:

• Overview of MathView™'s mathematical capabilities.
  
  Although MathView™ is not nearly as powerful mathematically as Maple or Mathematica, it does have its strong points. Similar to both new versions of Mathematica and Maple, MathView™ has function palettes which result in a calculator-type and mouse-oriented math application. Easier to use because of its relative simplicity, MathView™ is a great introduction to the math computer world. It is also very easy to put notebooks up on the web using MathView™. We did not do too much work on MathView™ this summer because we found the Internet plug-in to be unstable when used with certain system software platforms (Mac OS 8, UNIX, Windows98, Windows NT) and with Netscape Navigator/ Internet Explorer 4.0.
  
  
• Web capabilities:
  
  Putting MathView™ notebooks on the web is quite simple. MathView™ proved to be the most interactive of the three programs that we looked at. However, the MathView™ plug-in turned out to be unstable with the version of Netscape Navigator we were using. When we contacted Maple Support, they said that the MathView™ plug-in was not supported by UNIX systems, Mac OS 8 and above and Netscape and Internet Explorer Versions 4.0 and above. It is only supported by Mac OS 7.1.1 up to Mac OS 7.6 and Windows95 platforms. Hence, although using the MathView™ program on your computer is stable, using the MathView™ plug-in is not. Since MathView™'s interactivity on the web is based on the web browser that we were using (we assumed that most people would be using Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer 4.0 and above), we decided not to make more than three MathView™ notebooks until we were sure that it would be safe to do so.
  
  
• Hopes for the future:
  
  SPIMSOW hopes that new versions of MathView™ and the MathView™ Internet plug-in will be released soon. This will ensure that the program is stable when used to publish math on the web. At this time Waterloo Maple Inc. cannot project when these new versions will be released. Since MathView™ is the only program out of the three that has interactive capabilities, it may prove to be the most useful in web publishing, especially with the web publishing of tutorials for school children. This information should be looked at with the knowledge that MathView™ is not anywhere as powerful mathematically as Maple or Mathematica.
  
  

Links to Other MathView Information

Some SPIMSOW MathView™ Notebooks
The LiveMath web-site