Despite some diversity of the SCM user interface, even at a glance it is clear that it has many common details for different systems – right up to the same designation of toolbar buttons and menu commands. With them we will start a systematic consideration of the SCM user interface. We focus here on the user interfaces of MathCad 8/2000, Mathematica, and Maple.

The application window is the centerpiece of the user interface. At the top of the window is the title bar, the menu bar, the toolbar and formatting bar, and the ruler for fine-tuning Mathcad blocks. At the bottom of the window is the system status bar.

As with all Windows applications, Mathcad system windows are scalable and moveable. The application window controls and system menu commands (opened by clicking the icon at the beginning of the title bar) are the same as in all Windows applications, so we won’t consider them.

The composition of the menu bar is context-sensitive, that is, it depends on the current state of the system. For some systems, passive menu items are simply not displayed, for others they are unavailable.

Below the menu bar is the toolbar. It contains buttons for quick control of the system, duplicating the corresponding menu commands. They are usually set up so that in most cases you won’t need to use the menus. The formatting panel below is used to change the parameters of already entered and selected objects, or the parameters the user is about to enter. The commands that control the display of the toolbar, formatting and status bar, as well as the ruler are collected in the View menu of the menu bar.

Most computer math systems have a similar (in principle) view of the main window. However, the more complex the system, the fewer buttons in its toolbars and formatting. MATLAB 5.0/5.3 systems have very few buttons, and Mathematica 3/4 got rid of such “excesses” as toolbars and formatting in the main application window. These panels, however, can be entered in separate document windows.

Almost all mathematical systems have the following items on the menu bar:

File – File manipulation (open, close, write to disk, print);
Edit – editing of documents and usage of clipboard;
View – change the means of displaying interface elements;
Insert – inserting objects (including graphics);
Format – change the formatting of objects;
Window – Controls the system windows;
Help – work with the help database of the system.

The purpose of these menus is the same as that of the office programs. Of course, each system may also have its own distinctive menus, which will be described as we study the respective systems.