Ubuntu
gcalctool package

Default shortcut for '^' not intuitive?

Bug #16505 reported by Jeff Hodges on 2005-04-27

14

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	gcalctool (Ubuntu)	Fix Released	Low	Sebastien Bacher

Bug Description

This bug may be needed to be moved upstream. When a user enters a statement
with exponentiation using the keyboard, instead of seeing the proper "^" in the
statement, they will have entered in "XOr". Example: "5^2" entered with the
keyboard will become (and be calculated as) "5 XOr 2". I'm not so sure that
many developers find this handy and for myself and the average user, "^" should
be exponentiation, not an exclusive or. There seems to be no other sane keycode
for entering in exponentiation from the keyboard. Even "**" tosses up a
malformed statement error. This interpretation of the "^" keycode needs to be
changed into the nicely sane default of exponentiation.

[In case someone goes crazy: "**" should not be used as the new keycode for
exponentiation for a variety of reasons; the most basic of these is that "**"
does not exist as an operator for most users and mathematicians (unless they
happen to be doing some numerical analysis).]

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=304056: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=304056

See original description

Revision history for this message

Jeff Hodges (jmhodges) wrote on 2005-04-27:

#1

*** Bug 16504 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message

Matt Zimmerman (mdz) wrote on 2005-05-03:

#2

The default shortcut for exponentiation is 'y' (as in 'x^y')

Revision history for this message

Jeff Hodges (jmhodges) wrote on 2005-05-03:

#3

'^' -> calc_xpowy() and 'x' -> calc_xor() Edit (712 bytes, text/plain)

Created an attachment (id=2205)
'^' -> calc_xpowy() and 'x' -> calc_xor()

(In reply to comment #2)
> The default shortcut for exponentiation is 'y' (as in 'x^y')

Ah, there we go. It seems that this is a simple three line patch to
lr_parser.y. I ran the old "ask 10 people" usability test on what button
people use when they plug expressions into their software calculators and it's
either "I use a mouse" or "I hit that carrot/hat/up arrow button". Maybe it's
a cultural thing but so far, no one has thought that "y" would be something
they would try. I'm including a patch to switch '^' to calc_xpowy() and 'x' to
calc_xor(). I've triple checked to make sure this doesn't break anything in
the parser. Feeling silly for making a new patch (and a new comment) for three
lines of work on such a trivial change. The patch is against the latest CVS
but I doubt the parser has changed much.

Revision history for this message

Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote on 2005-05-13:

#4

I've opened a bug upstream about this:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=304056

Revision history for this message

Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote on 2005-05-18:

#5

This bug is fixed by this upload:

gcalctool (5.6.14-0ubuntu1) breezy; urgency=low
.
   * Sync with Debian.
   * New upstream version:
     - fix the exponential function (Ubuntu: #8366).
     - fix the keyboard shortcut for x^y (Ubuntu: #10207).
   * debian/watch:
     - updated.

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'^' -> calc_xpowy() and 'x' -> calc_xor() Edit

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