Re: Request feedback for gcalctool feature request.

[Rich Burridge <Rich Burridge Sun COM>]

Hi Alan,

> I'd say yes because when I use a calculator it is usually for fairly
> simple task which would be covered by the light mode (for more complicated
> tasks there is Gnumeric, or Mathematic or ...)

Okay.
 
> The only downside I see to this new mode is that it makes impractical my
> suggestion of having an oversized (easier to hit) button for = like on a
> physical calculator :(
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=155099

Yup. I'm probably going to close this off at some point as WILLNOTFIX.
The calculator simply isn't designed in a way to make this easy to 
implement. I'd also like to believe that most serious gcalctool users use
the keyboard to enter numbers rather then hunt-n-peck with the mouse.
You can also change the size of the application font associated with 
gcalctool if you want the buttons bigger. I believe some of the 
accessibility fonts will automatically do this for you for the whole 
desktop.
 
> Equals is not on the bottom right where Gnome has successfully conditioned
> me to expect the action button, it would be nice if things could be
> adjusted so that the equals button was on the bottom right.

Let me talk that over with the HCI folks. No promises at the moment.
 
> It would of course be nice to be able to type 2+2 directly as Luis
> suggested but hopefully it could be done without the complexity of
> Qalculate which is a turnoff for me and begs the question what kind of
> users are you aiming for?

I don't understand. You should be able to type 2+2 directly. There is a
keyboard equivalent for every calculator button.
 
> I would be a little bit concerned that niave users might not realise that
> more complicated versions of the calculator were available by using the
> menu items, it migth be good if there was some kind of visual indicator
> hinting at the other modes.  Perhaps something could be added to the
> status bar, similar to how a word processor has a small space on the
> status bar for INS/OVR that displays the current mode and (if you are
> lucky) is clickable and changes modes.

These would be pretty niave users. Windows XP and MacOS X both have the
ability in their calculators to get to more complicated modes via their
application menubar.

I'd like to hope that the user understands what a menu bar is and that 
the View item might give them other views.  

> Personally I would have used Ctrl+1 2 3 4 as bindings for the modes, as
> the current keybindings wont make any sense in other langauges.  I
> probably wouldn't call this new mode Light either, I'd rename it to
> Basic/Simple and call the current Basic mode "Normal".
> But that is just me.

Sorry, I don't understand why users would intuitively grok that
Control-[1,2,3] would automatically change modes for them. 
Currently there is Control-[b,f,s] to do this, but you have to 
have visited the View menu to realize what they are, or read the 
online help (but who does that?)
 
> Other minor points:
> the horizonal scrollbar seems odd.

See:  http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=157757

> Would it be possible to have a proper division symbol?
> I mean a horizontal bar with a dot above and below because when I first
> started using computers I had to learn to use / for division and * for
> multiplication rather than symbols I had previously learnt as a child.  It
> is all to easy to forget how confusing this was at the time.

See: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=157701