GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 65806
gnome-calculator needs stylized buttons for 'e' and 'pi' and 'sqr'
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
The "e" sign/button should be italic Replace "SQRT" and "PI" with it's familiar signs
Yeah, this would be nice...I guess it has some sort of accessibility issues but certainly not going to look at this before 2.0.
non-2.0
As for accessibility issues, if these change to the "familiar symbols" then code changes for accessibility will be needed, to make sure that the accessible "names" of these keys are still "PI" and "SQRT" (or, better, lower-case "pi" and "square root"). So please don't "fix" this bug without adding these ATK calls (e.g. atk_object_set_name (atko, "pi")).... thanks.
punted to 2.2
reassigning to gcalctool.
Note that gcalctool doesn't have PI, or e buttons. These are provided as two of the ten default constants. It does have a Sqrt button though. There is also an e to the x button. Certainly would be straight forward making that "e" italic.
I don't think there are any severe L10N implications of using the "real" symbols. Fortunately, mathematic notation is pretty much standardized across the world in this regard, with notable exceptions, but I doubt those apply in these cases. The only issue I can think of would be font support for these symbols, but I'm not sure if that's a big problem.
As an addition, some other buttons can possibly be modified, so that they look like written mathematical notation. E.g. "Abs" can be "|x|". As the tooltip already describes the function of button, I suppose there's no problem for those who don't understand the notation. For some other buttons like 'x^2' and '10^x', the font sizes of indexes can also be adjusted so that they are more natural-looking. For example, in 'x^2', the 'x' and '2' sizes are almost identical, while the '2' is significantly smaller in written notation. I'm not sure the "real" fix can be (or no change should be done at all). One hack is to add extra <small> tags.
The '*' would be nice to replace with a proper '×' too, and in a similar way replacing '/' with '÷'.
Removing the a11y keyword for now to get it off the a11y buglist as there's not really any existing a11y 'bug' here... of course as noted above, making sure it's still accessible after any such changes are made is critical though :)
I've just talked this one over with Calum Benson, the HCI person I work with. Our hope is that over time, we can get more and more Windows users to migrate to a Linux desktop (and hopefully GNOME ;-). We want them to be as familiar as possible with the calculator that they find there. To that end, I would therefore like to make them as similar as possible, where that is a reasonable thing to do. So I will not be changing the multiply or divide button labels. MS uses "*" and "/"; gcalctool will do the same. Same with "+/-" for "Change sign". I'm keeping that rather than changing to "|x|". Another suggested change was to use a square root sign rather than "Sqrt". I'm not changing this. Firstly, the tooltip will quickly give you "Square root" when that button has focus, so the "obscure" "Sqrt" isn't that bad. Secondly, I just don't see a simple way to generate a one-off special square root symbol for this button. It's adding undue complexity, where it really isn't needed. As mentioned before, "pi" is a constant in gcalctool. A constant that can be potentially overwritten by the user, so I'm not changing that either. The MS calculator also uses a "pi" label. So that leaves us with the suggested e^x change (or rather e superscript x. I'm happy with doing this (small) change. Patch to follow soon. Then I will close out this enhancement request.
Change (as previously described) checked into CVS HEAD. Fixed in gcalctool v4.3.10.
A few points: a) [ '×' and '÷' ] versus ["*" and "/" ] Isn't it still the case that when people first learn how to multiply and divide, they do so under instruction from a teacher who writes the '×' and '÷' symbols on the board in the classroom? The '×' and '÷' symbols are used on my trusty calculator (which, granted, is over twenty years old) and on my PDA. I believe that it is when people first start to use an <emphasis>online</emphasis> calculator, that they have to learn that '×' is represented by "*", and '÷' is represented by "/". <emphasis>That</emphasis> is the learning curve, not the reverse mapping. The "*" and "/" characters already have several different meanings, so using the '×' and '÷' symbols would reduce the potential for confusion. Perhaps the "*" substitution was intended to avoid confusion with the letter x in written tracts? Or perhaps people wanted to use an existing key on a keyboard, rather than have to use a special symbol? I don't think either argument is valid for a calculator button, though... If Windows did have a valid reason for using "*" and "/" on the online calculator, I'm willing to stand corrected :) I understand that you are trying to make things easier for Windows users, but I don't think that you should propagate the Windows way of doing things without evaluating the relative merits of the alternatives. Remember "The Guru's Cat"[1] -- find out why something was done originally, before blindly going ahead and doing the same thing! b) '|x|' versus "Abs" or "+/-" The |x| symbol is an alternative way of specifying the "Abs" (Absolute Value) key, not the "+/-" [2] (Change Sign) key. Granted, if x = -1, both the Abs key and +/- key return a value of 1. However, if x = 1, the +/- key returns -1, but the Abs key returns 1. Changing "Abs" to "|x|" sounds like something that would help the I18N folks... ...and my Windows XP calculator doesn't seem to have the Absolute Value function, so no potential conflict? c) [e, the base of natural logarithms] versus [e, exponential] I checked the e^x question with my colleague Pat, because I felt that the e should not have been italicized. Pat agrees, and says that the x should have been italicized instead -- see Bug 123132 for more details. Note that this will have a knock-on effect on five other buttons: 1/x, x^2, x!, 10^x, y^x -- where x and y should be italicized in all cases. I also wondered if you used the italics in e^x to differentiate between the natural log base e and the exponential e that is used in scientific notation? To avoid confusion, the "e" in exponential number notation should be changed to "exp". For example: 1. Start gcalctool. 2. Choose View > Scientific Mode. 3. Select the Fix option. (The Eng/Fix/Sci options are right-aligned underneath the Bin/Oct/Dec/Hex options, immediately below the display area.) 4. Type 50000. Displayed as 50000. 5. Select the Sci option. Displayed as 5e+4. The displayed value should be 5exp+4. [Actually, I think the displayed value should be 5exp4, so that the sign is only specified for negative numbers, but I'm happy to concede this point :)] I'll update the Help as detailed in Bug 123132. [1] Any decent search engine will find this story. [2] Does this mean "+ divided by -" ?!
Hi Breda. Thanks for your comments. It's obvious we all have our own ideas of how these button labels should look. Well, I've talked this through with my HCI person (Calum Benson) once already, and I thought we had a definitive answer. I mean, that's why they pay these HCI guys the big bucks (euros, whatever)! :-) So Calum, please let me know what you think should be changed here (if anything), and I'll implement that, and lets put this issue to rest.
For multiply and divide, I'd suggest sticking with "*" and "/" as that's normally what's written on the keys people will have to press to activate them[1]. (And I believe the vast majority of gcalctool users will use the keyboard or keypad to perform those sorts of calculations, rather than clicking on the GUI buttons). For functions that have no keyboard equivalent, I'd be perfectly happy to see whatever you'd find on a regular calculator, whether that's italicised variables or mathematical symbols instead of textual abbreviations. There's a font issue there in that those symbols may or may not exist in whatever arbitrary font/size the user happens to have chosen, though, which is why we decided to leave most of them as is. [1] Having said that, the IBM keyboard I'm using right now happens to have '×' and '÷' on the keypad, but this is the first keypad I ever remeber seeing that does :)
I have an old keyboard reference here, listing some international layouts. Germany and Sweden both seem to officially use '×' and '÷' on the numeric keypad, while most other layouts use '*' and '/'. However, that reference is more than 11 years old, and this might slowly be changing, as Calum points out. After all, there's very little reason to continue using the legacy and incorrect typewriter symbols when the reasons for using those have been obsoleted for many decades.
Created attachment 21777 [details] Changes to adjust the "1/x", "x^2", "x!", "e^x", "10^x" and "y^x" labels.
I have made the following decisions/changes: * Multiplication and division button labels. Calum's argument that they should be whatever the symbols are on the keyboard is what convinced be here, so I will be leaving them as "*" and "/" by default. If localization teams want to adjust them to suit their countries keyboard layout that's fine (they are localized strings). * "|x|" versus "Abs" or "+/-" The Abs key is one of the buttons in Basic mode. These keys are meant to be easily understood by "normal" desktop users. I'm not convinced that "|x|" is as meaningful as "Abs" to them, so I'm keeping "Abs". Calum you didn't comment on this one, so if you feel it should be different, feel free to add a comment and re-re-open the bug. * e^x Breda and Pat's arguments sold me here, so I'm making the following changes: For the "1/x", "x^2", "x!", "e^x", "10^x" and "y^x" labels, all occurances of "x" and "y" are now italicized. The "e" in "e^x" is no longer italicized. Checked into CVS HEAD. Fixed in v4.3.21. Hopefully this enhancement request can be now laid to rest. ;-)