Dear Maple Users

I am mainly in favor of the new rules concerning subscripts. Using Ctrl+-- (double underscore) it is pretty straight forward to get a literal subscript and it displays much better in the palette Variables than was the case i Maple 16. Also the purple coloring of a variable containing a literal subscript makes sense, because it can be distinguished from the usual subscript (now Ctrl+shift+-). Good that you can remove the coloring in the View Menu (Atomic Variables) if you like, though. One thing that I don't like though, is the fact that display of Atomic Variables doesn't follow usual typographical rules:

Above is the variable with the literal subscript and below the variable with the usual subscript. I find the first unacceptable. In Physics large subscripts are often being used. The way it is done for literal subscripts will mean difficulties when you read and mentally try to grasp what is being written. Besides it is against the typographical rules for writing mathematics. I don't think the fact that the variable + the subscript constituting a whole justifies the way it is written in Maple 17. I hope Maplesoft will change this behavior! 

Regards,

Erik