Provide alternate number base display support in Calculate

[FGrose]

Binary, octal, hexadecimal number displays and conversions would be useful and instructional for mathematics and computer sciences.

Arbitrary number base support would be instructional for learners of number systems and programming style.

[walter]

Sounds great, but this won't be done in time for 0.88. Is there anyone working on this?

[garycmartin]

Replying to walter:

Sounds great, but this won't be done in time for 0.88. Is there anyone working on this?

No not that I'm aware of, there are bigger, more 'trivial' bugs to fry first (at least to my eye).

[garycmartin]

Reinier already added the code (display integer results in base 2, 8, 10, or 16). New toolbar icons added in commit ad171eea, ready for Calculate-32 release

[FGrose]

With the new toolbar button that changes the number base the display of the current calculation should be updated when the number base is changed.

Currently the toolbar number state and display get out of sync, and it's not easy to explore a number in different base displays.

[garycmartin]

Replying to FGrose:

With the new toolbar button that changes the number base the display of the current calculation should be updated when the number base is changed.

Currently the toolbar number state and display get out of sync, and it's not easy to explore a number in different base displays.

All such tool mode changes affect the next calculation being entered (eg decimal point rounding, sci/eng). We don't have any buttons that make live updates of previously entered results. My feeling is that we either need a simple mode in Calculate, or more likely a new activity, perhaps called Sums, that provides _NO_ user input ability other than a basic set of calculator buttons and immediate updates (just like an old fashioned calculator device).

[garycmartin]

Closing this as a high ceiling case (unless we make a simple Sum activity with basic functions for 95% of our target users, I think Calculates feature complexity has already grown out of control for most. We need to improve stability and UI clarity, polish, not add yet more features). Please open a new feature request if you feel strongly and have a suggestion as to how the UI would need to work.

FWIW: For the high ceiling use case, you can already use python standard integer presentation types if you want to input in a specific base or perform calculations in mixed bases using 0b for binary, 0o for octal and 0x for hex:

0b111 = 7
0b111+0b11 = 10
0xf*0b10 = 30
0o20 = 16

Perhaps this just needs to be better documented? Or new base secondary toolbar with buttons to insert these characters?