[openbeos] Re: Calculator still needed?
- From: "Stephan Assmus" <superstippi@xxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2006 04:44:09 +0200
> > As the guy who made the initial request of bundling a calculator with
> > Haiku--yes, it was I who suggested an MS Windows-type calculator), I
> > personally
> > hate DeskCalc.
> >
> > It may be great for you coders, but for the ordinary desktop user
> > it's not a
> > good choice for the bundled calculator IMO. The interface is non-
> > standard
> > (meaning it has blue atypical buttons instead of the typical gray
> > BeOS-like
> > buttons). It doesn't support converting to & from different bases
> > (hex, oct,
> > dec, etc.). Yes, it is very powerful--I'll give it that. But it seems
> > to be a
> > black sheep when compared to the rest of the included apps.
> >
> > Again, you devs are the ultimate decision makers, but please just
> > consider this
> > end-user's point of view.
> >
> > (As far as the Calculator app, I either haven't tried it or it's been
> > so long
> > I've forgotten its nature... so I can't give you my opinion on that
> > one. Didn't
> > mean to go off-topic with this.)
> They both don't fit in with the rest of the bundled apps when it comes
> to look. I originally was the one who checked in Calculator because
> discussions in the forums seemed to be going around in circles and
> someone needed to make a decision, which I did, for right or wrong. I
> also was not aware of DeskCalc at the time. To be honest, *both* apps
> would need work to fit in with the rest of Haiku's bundled apps, but I
> think that DeskCalc has the capacity to be both powerful and usable for
> a variety of people. Someone's just going to need to put in some
> careful thought on the design changes to make it worthwhile to the
> developer and still quite understandable for Joe User. I might do some
> of this once I get a little time sometime soon.
>
> Personally speaking, I don't like the look. The blue is hard on my eyes
> after a short period of time. The small bevel at the borders of the
> buttons don't visually give them enough contrast with their neighbors.
> However, I still think that it should be the bundled calculator app.
> One of the main reasons that I really like DeskCalc because it lets you
> see the entire expression before you hit = -- you don't have to
> remember what it is you've entered and you easily see if you've made a
> typing mistake. DeskCalc has the capacity to be really good; it will
> just take some tweaking to get where it needs to be.
I would vote to remove the buttons all together and only keep the text control.
Right now, you can hide the buttons and it will remember the setting. Having
buttons on the calculator is like having buttons for every letter in the
alphabet in StyledEdit. Totally stupid. It should have never been done like
that in any calculator app. I totally agree that it is user unfriendly that
there is nowhere a list of supported functions. So I like Axels idea to have
some kind of popup for that. In defence of the look of the buttons... it was
designed to sit on your desktop. Real buttons would just look too
thick/bloated. But as I said, I'd remove the buttons anyways. :-)
A sidenote on usability: my girlfriend watched me use DeskCalc, and she loved
it. As an example, for a user it is much more friendly to be able to get back
to your previous equation (up arrow) and correct some mistake, than to have
buttons "so you know what to do". Using the windows calculator to me is just
frustrating in comparisson.
Best regards,
-Stephan
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