Opened 15 years ago

Closed 13 years ago

Last modified 11 years ago

#1332 closed defect (notabug)

Provide alternate number base display support in Calculate

Reported by: FGrose Owned by: rwh
Priority: Unspecified by Maintainer Milestone:
Component: Calculate Version: Unspecified
Severity: Unspecified Keywords:
Cc: Distribution/OS: Unspecified
Bug Status: New

Description

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.

Change History (8)

comment:1 Changed 15 years ago by erikos

  • Milestone changed from Unspecified by Release Team to 0.88

comment:2 follow-up: Changed 14 years ago by walter

  • Milestone changed from 0.88 to 0.90

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

comment:3 in reply to: ↑ 2 Changed 14 years ago by 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).

comment:4 Changed 14 years ago by garycmartin

  • Resolution set to fixed
  • Status changed from new to closed

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

comment:5 follow-up: Changed 14 years ago by FGrose

  • Bug Status changed from Unconfirmed to New
  • Resolution fixed deleted
  • Status changed from closed to reopened
  • Type changed from enhancement to defect

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.

comment:6 in reply to: ↑ 5 Changed 14 years ago by 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).

comment:7 Changed 13 years ago by garycmartin

  • Milestone changed from 0.90 to not applicable
  • Resolution set to notabug
  • Status changed from reopened to closed

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?

comment:8 Changed 11 years ago by dnarvaez

  • Milestone not applicable deleted

Milestone not applicable deleted

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