Thank you for the hint.

Now it is about 3 weeks that I am using SMath Studio as an alternative to MathCAD which is prohibitvly expensive.
And I really like it.

So regarding Smath I am a learner and beginner.
By the way thanks to M. Kraska - who has made a very professional handbook. The handbook has been my guide for the first steps and I am still always using it as a reference. Must have been quite a lot of work. I hope he will continiue to update it on a regular basis along with the program development. Regarding all these nice plugins there is still some need for documentation. It is a bit hard to find the right plugin for a specific purpose - especialy for beginners. If the capability of the program is depending too much on plugins you will get too many varieties and tastes and then sheets you have developed based on one version will not work on anotherone since the necessary plugin is missing. My proposal is to have kind of different packages like "base/cat", "standard/tiger" and "maximum/lion" which always have the same set of plugins. Then one could be sure that sheets that were developed on the basis of a specific set will always work as long as you stick to a certain package. This would be important for company use.

I have tried a lot of other free programs as well, like Maxima. But for my puposes SMath is really the best even though it seems to be under constant development. It is really amazing what the author of the software and the team around him have achieved so far. Congratulations!

I have read that Smath Studio is free. Does this mean that I am on the safe side when I'm using it - beside for my private pleasure - as a engineering tool in my company? The problem many engineers have is, that they actually would need such a tool but often the company is not willing to pay for licensees and subscriptions for a commercial product when the finance guys - who actually have no glue what engineering means - don't consider it as essential for running the business.
I want to make some engineering templates which might be also used by my collegues without having the need of digging deeper into the matter again and again - but if they want they have the opportunity to track the calculation step by step to the solution (transparency) - This is the beauty of the SMath approach and the disadvantage of using an Excel sheet(I have made some good Excel sheets - but even me who actually has made them sometimes after a while needs to think hard to understand them again.). My intention is: Take the template - enter the input parameters, and use the results for your purpose.
But of course I will only make such efforts when I know that I am in the safe side (otherwise one can get fired nowadys. So my heat transfer problem - still in progress - but going on well was actually a test to find out whether SMath would be suitable for such purposes.

This leads me to my second question:
There are various versions and plugins and it needs some insider knowledge to chose the most suitable version for a specific pupose. Currently I am using the portable version with a lot of plugins but without the "canadian tree :-)" plugin. Now it is weekend and I want to you use the plugin with the Bessel function. A quick and dirty attempt failed....
So which version do you recommend? The linux version (which actually is also based on Windows)the installer version,or the portable version (if have been using upt to now)? Is there any "maximum plugin version" as a finished package out there?

Thank you for your extensive reply.

I fully agree with you regarding the documentation. This course of action is even better.
- close at hand
- one source and thus more consistent
- easier maintenance
- community collaboration in respect to updates / enhancements / portation
(That also means you can share the workload with some willling community members)

The more is documented in the software itself already the less one needs to rely on additional sources and the whole package becomes more consistent and mature. So your efforts working on that surly will be much appreciated by the users especially the new ones.

The dynamic assistant is an excellent feature and I like it very much. Soon MathCad will copy it in order to keep up with SMath :-)

Regarding the version I think that I have been using your package which is really a good start for beginners and and there is also no need to worry about anything when you are taking it to the company on a pen drive - this is very important if calculations made with SMath should become part of a project documentation. (Normally nobody is interested in such calculations until something had gone wrong.. didn't happen so far... but just in case.)

I have made some experiments.... with the above mentioned plugin. It is filling a gap when more sophisticated symbolics are needed - nice!). Regarding the plugin manager I was wondering what it should actually be when I saw it on the screenshot - has coused me kind of "aha"-effect...

Thank you for the hints regarding the package options. I will follow your advice.
The "thank you" buton is not working with my browser, but of course consider yourself very much thanked for.

All functions from the mathlib.dll library you can find in Cephes Math Library.
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Все функции из библиотеки mathlib.dll содержатся в дополнении Cephes Math Library.

Edited by user 12 May 2020 14:06:50(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thanks, it seems to work!