[Maxima] Bug?

[Robert Marik]

akim <akim.l <at> hotmail.fr> writes:

>  
> What is this "expand" ? Can I acces to it via the 
> grafical wxmaxima menu, that the answer of everything I differentiate is 
> the shortest?
>  

Yes, you can. I have the following button below the input field:
Simplify, Simplify(r), Factor, Expand, ......

Other functions (for trigonometric functions and others) are in menu simplify in
wxmaxima.


Concerning the shortest answer:
You can define your own function which tries expand, factor, xthru, radcan,
ratsimp, fullratsimp, trigsimp, trigreduce, ......, saves the results and prints
the shortest string. But this approach may lead to some unwanted problems and
the shortest string is not allways optimal string for reader.

Robert Marik