GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 114363
Buttons should be disabled after calculation error
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
Currently, after calc error, buttons are not disabled, so some funny things can be done like this: 1. enter scientific mode. 2. let calculator shows error (e.g. [0] [log] ) 3. Now all constants and registers values are 'error' 4. press 'constant' button, and edit the constants 5. save the constants by pressing 'OK' 6. The constants are gone forever -- the gconf values of /apps/gcalctool/constant?value becomes the localized string of 'error'
(Cc:'ing Calum Benson, the HCI guy on this). Ugh. Nasty. There are two parts to this bug. The first is that the Constants and Memory Register values should never show "Error". I've just fixed this and checked it into CVS (v4.2.87). The second part is the disabling of buttons etc when the calculator is in an Error state. When this happens, the only valid button (or keyboard equivalent) you can enter is Clr. Currently all the Scientific toggles and checkboxes are toggable and checkable and all the menubar entries and selectable. What I propose is to (when an Error condition occurs): * make insensitive all buttons except Clr. * make all Scientific mode toggles and checkboxes insensitive. * make all menubar items insensitive except: Calculator->Quit Help->Contents Calum, does this seem reasonable? The problem here is that this is a UI change and I might have missed the feature freeze deadline. It can certainly be changed for the next release though if this is the case.
UI freeze is July 7th, so you're okay for now :) Yes, the change sounds reasonable. I guess longer term we might want to consider whether rigidly sticking to the calculator metaphor is really necessary here, and maybe just have any button clear the error, or pop up the error in an alert box with a single 'clear error' button, which sounds kind of yucky too although it would give you more of an opportunity to explain the error and wouldn't require any extra clicks from the user. Generally, disabling a whole GUI save for a single button in response to some event just makes me a little nervous :) But I guess in this case it's justifiable since it has the weight of user expectation behind it.
Fixed in v4.2.90 (checked into CVS HEAD). When an error condition occurs: - make insensitive all buttons except Clr. - make all Scientific mode toggles and checkboxes insensitive. - make all menubar items insensitive except: Calculator->Quit Help->Contents When the error condition is cleared, resensitise everything, setting the numeric base buttons correctly.
[Rich asked me to have a look at this bug to see if the Help should be updated.] I suggest replacing the current Section 4.2 with the following text: " 4.2. Error Conditions If you perform an invalid calculation, gcalctool indicates the error condition as follows: - Displays the word Error in the display area. - Makes all calculator buttons unavailable, except Clr. - Makes all calculator options unavailable. - Makes all calculator menu items unavailable, except Calculator->Quit and Help->Contents. To clear the error condition, click Clr or press Delete. " If you're happy with this suggested change, I'll check the updated manual into CVS.
Sounds great Breda. Please go ahead and update CVS accordingly. Thanks!
Changes made in gcalctool Manual V2.4, now committed into CVS :)