A better calculator
Jeffrey Lee (213) 6048 posts |
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. |
Chris (121) 472 posts |
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. |
David J. Ruck (33) 1629 posts |
SciCalc is correct, don’t even think of messing with it. |
John Rickman (71) 645 posts |
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. Python running in a TaskWindow is hard to beat, and with a preset alias:-
is even better:
Python command line acts as a calculator for most common arithmetic operations and for more complex expression you can import math. SciCalc is not so bad anyway. |
GavinWraith (26) 1563 posts |
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. |
Jean-Michel BRUCK (3009) 351 posts |
I had opened a ticket for SciCalc about a bug concerning the “.” because I use Territory “France”. For those who are interested there is a Risc OS version of PariGP version 2.31 here |
Chris (121) 472 posts |
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. |
Jeffrey Lee (213) 6048 posts |
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. |
Paolo Fabio Zaino (28) 1854 posts |
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). |
Jean-Michel BRUCK (3009) 351 posts |
@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. |
Chris (121) 472 posts |
Ah, sorry – I thought that issue had been resolved. I’ll take a look when I can :) |