I am a brand new user of Smath, attempting to make the jump from MathCad. So far, so good except that I often used MathCad's symbolics->variable->solve feature. I downloaded the unofficial portable smath version with maxima but I haven't been able to figure out how to perform this operation. Can this be done in SMath/w Maxima? if so, how?

You can use the Solve() function (note the capital S), which is a wrapper for Maxima's solve(). There is a handbook included in the distribution, accessible via the [?] button in the tool bar. In the contents page, find the function index and navigate to Solve() and Assign() in order to see the details. Take care to use Optimization -> None or Symbolic for display of solutions, as they are returned in the form of equations like x = 2.