A better calculator

I’ve moaned about scicalc a bit in the past, and Chris Wraight has made a number of good improvements to Calc/SciCalc over the years (and I think I’ve previously sent some of my gripes to him via email when he asked about them), but since there are still improvements that could be made I feel like it’s my duty to mention this lengthy article about the ‘Chalk’ calculator, since the developer appears to share a lot of my views about the deficiencies in standard calculator apps.

I haven’t looked at SciCalc for a while, I’m afraid – I do remember our email exchange a while back, but haven’t had the time to really look into the various issues. The scarce time I do get for programming is mostly taken up with the OS’s other truly essential app, Maestro ;-)

Another factor that stalled further attempts at tinkering is the one you raise here: how radical a departure to make from the standard calculator model. SciCalc is written in BASIC, and structured around a fairly simple model of number entry, etc. It would be possible to tweak this here and there, improve issues around accuracy, make the interface a bit nicer, but not (I think) radically overhaul the concepts it employs. Producing something like Chalk would, I’m guessing, be better implemented from scratch, or possibly as a port. Given the list of things that RISC OS is lacking, and the paucity of developers, is that a likely possibility? I don’t know – I guess it depends on what the demand is for a more comprehensive calculator.

SciCalc is correct, don’t even think of messing with it.

my duty to mention lengthy article about ‘Chalk’ calculator

I don’t like starting something and not finishing so ploughed on and on to the end.
Some interesting observations but like political careers all attempts to write a satifactory calculator end in failure including Chalk.
He rightly identifies quick access and ease of use via the keyboard and rates Google highly.
For quick one-off calculations you don’t want to be looking around for a calculator, or starting up a browser for that matter.

Python running in a TaskWindow is hard to beat, and with a preset alias:-

set alias$p python3

is even better:

Ctrl-f12
*p
Python 3.8.12+ (riscos-1, Sep ......
>>> 2+2
4

Python command line acts as a calculator for most common arithmetic operations and for more complex expression you can import math.
And you get a nice audit trail, reusable input, ability to save out and print, and several at once.

SciCalc is not so bad anyway.

this lengthy article about the ‘Chalk’ calculator

Snap: see Aldershot. I use RiscLua for quick (and rare) calculatioons or Zahl if big numbers are involved. I particularly take on board that you don’t always want to display things numerically. Keeping π as a symbol in formulae is often a good thing. Manipulating mathematical expressions is not just a can of worms – it is a warehousefull of them – and that might be too much to ask.

I had opened a ticket for SciCalc about a bug concerning the “.” because I use Territory “France”.
Line 1199 in DEF FNLocale_val, the EVAL function does not do the calculation correctly.
I created a new function FNlocale_val2(number$) and changed the call to this function in FNcalc_evaluate.
This way it works from the numeric keypad, the “.” is replaced by a “,” and the résults are good, This was long planned by the author of SciCalc.

For those who are interested there is a Risc OS version of PariGP version 2.31 here
The editor uses two TextAreas and the cut and past protocol has been implemented, useful for transferring results to an editor or to TechWriter.Plots are displayed in Draw.
The program bugs from time to time and there are problems getting the TextArea(s) handle at startup, it’s not yet in the TA gadget :-(
It’s only a project, but I use it, for example I need rotation calculation made with a matrix for another project in progress, it’s easy…

I had opened a ticket for SciCalc about a bug concerning the “.” because I use Territory “France”.

That should have been fixed a couple of versions back: https://gitlab.riscosopen.org/RiscOS/Sources/Apps/SciCalc/-/commit/d1fc7126a923378f602f88be7e7befb8e06a0a72

Are you still having problems with the latest version? If so, I’d be happy to look at it again.

I haven’t looked at SciCalc for a while, I’m afraid

That’s fine.

Since programmers can easily open a task window and do calculations in BASIC/Lua/Python/etc., it’d probably be worth focusing on any improvements that non-programmers want to see.

I’m guessing, be better implemented from scratch, or possibly as a port. Given the list of things that RISC OS is lacking, and the paucity of developers, is that a likely possibility? I don’t know – I guess it depends on what the demand is for a more comprehensive calculator.

I don’t know if this can be helpful, but I have in the long pile of things to do for the RISC OS desktop improvements both a new calc rewritten from scratch and also a new personal information management application, for which I have completed the entire DB design and implementation matching 1-to-1 all the DB features offered by macOS and KDE PIM.

It will take a while for me to get through the pile of tools/utilities/components that I need to add or replace in RISC OS desktop to reach “a more modern status”, but at least it’s on the list. If there are people willing to help (even by providing a vote of what the majority thinks it’s a priority) I can share the entire list of work I have (spoiler alert it’s a loooooot).

@Chris

bq Are you still having problems with the latest version? If so, I’d be happy to look at it again.

Yest, if the territory is “France” the “.” of the numeric keypad no longer has any action in SciCalc, keyboard operation is correct.
Note, at the same time as the modifications I had added a version of messages in French.
The full test version I’m using is available here:
https://jeanmichelb.riscos.fr/Download/SciCalcTest

if the territory is “France” the “.” of the numeric keypad no longer has any action in SciCalc

Ah, sorry – I thought that issue had been resolved. I’ll take a look when I can :)