Calcupy! - your semantic desktop calculator

[Tuxman]

A couple of years ago I found OpalCalc to be a useful part of my software repository, providing an easy way to do calculations of everyday things without having to think about how to tell the calculator what you actually want to calculate.

However, the full version of OpalCalc is not freeware. While I'd totally recommend to donate something to the guy behind OpalCalc, I'm not quite happy to pay for things I could develop myself. My natural lazyness loses ground when it comes to hard money.

So here's my first attempt.

Calcupy! - your semantic desktop calculator

Features:

• Calculate things.
• Convert units.
• Convert currencies (currently updated once a day, internet access is required for obvious reasons).

History:

• 0.0.3:
  
  • Fixed inconsistency: The window title is "Calcupy!" now.
  • Added an "About" window.
  • Updated libraries.
  • Calcupy! now tries to handle decimal commas more reliably.
• 0.0.2: First "public" version (DC exclusive).

To do:

• Add a history feature: Show the whole calculation history so you won't lose track of what you are actually doing.
• Add an option to set the maximum number of digits for the "mem" field.
• Fix some minor UI glitches.
• Set up a website and blog. (In progress.)
• Use a better runtime than Electron. Electron is awful.

Known inconsistencies:

• (none)

Suggestions:

This is version 0.0.3. Don't even dare to think that this is (in my eyes) nearly complete yet. I'm positive that everything you'd want to suggest is already planned or would be rejected anyway. Version 0.9.9 will probably be the first one to not apply this rule to. 8)


Temporary download location until I find the time to start the project's website:
Click me!
(... knowing that "Click me!" is as trustworthy as "enlarge your p€n!$ here" ...)

[mouser]

Shouldn't you be presenting this as your NANY 2016?

[Tuxman]

I can't guarantee that I'll have something interesting ready on January 1st, there are so many things missing yet. I, myself, would never give me a prize for this application before the most annoying TODOs are fixed.

[Shades]

It is always good to see more software from a lot of different developers here at DC. However, in my opinion, a 32MByte download for a calculator is a bit on the "heavy" side. Given the very early stages of the project, there is room for forgiveness and some "trimming of the fat"?

[Tuxman]

As mentioned in the start post, I made the fatal design decision to use Electron as my runtime library because the whole thing is written in (a lot of) JavaScript and the portability to various platforms is awesome with it. However, Electron (similarly to Common Lisp) forces me to compile itself right into the resulting executable file. I already deleted a number of not required DLLs and threw the whole thing through upx, the .7z archive had 72 MiB before.



The problem is that I need features like a "syntax-highlighted input box" (as seen in the screenshot). I haven't found a similar widget for other languages when I investigated about how to actually start my development. - I would willingly drop support for any other platform than Windows if I could achieve similar things with a similar effort in a different language that I actually "speak". Of course, that would require me to start all over again. The unit converter could be an interesting beast too.

[Tuxman]

Update: v0.0.3. Happy new etc.

Next step: Implement a Settings window.

[Tuxman]

FYI, here's the change log for my current to-be-released build of Calcupy! 0.1.0:

* Archive clean-up.
* Added the "as" conversion trigger word.
* Better formatting for currency conversion.
* Fixed a rarely (impossibly?) occurring syntax error.
* Fixed a potential freezing issue.
* Updated libraries.
* Added history tracking for the current application session.
* Added the "total" keyword.
* Fixed a problem where users could edit the output field.
* Added a link to Calcupy's website.
* Calcupy! has a new, still ugly icon, loosely resembling the old one.

The Settings window is held back while I work on the website for the first public version; of course, with a link back to DonationCoder even though you don't seem to care. 

Also, I found out that Mozilla is working on its own desktop application runtime based on Servo. I really do consider giving it a try when it's ready.