Main:GeekCalc

GeekCalc

GeekCalc, or whatever I wind up calling it, is intended to be a technology demo allowing other calculator program authors to borrow some potentially useful ideas. It would be the kind of calculator with two display areas, one that shows the current expression, and one that shows the results of the last expression.

Ideas

• Drag and Drop. SynCalc is the only calculator that I'm aware of that uses Drag and Drop. It allows you to drag values onto buttons, using the buttons as memory. You can then drag the buttons back to the display area to recall that memory. When I saw this, I liked it, but thought that SynCalc doesn't take the idea far enough. I'm thinking of including the ability to drag things from the history buffer (formulas or results), droping formulas in the expression display, or results in the display or on the variable menu button, to pop up a list of memories to allow the value to be saved to memory. I definitely think that's more convenient than entering x = (whatever), particularly when the variable is already defined.
• Placing functions around selections. If an expression, or part of one, is selected (highlighted), then replace the selection with that function, with the selection as the (first) parameter to that function. I've been thinking about this for a while, and Calc! is the first calculator I've seen that does this.
• Using TAB or next-field to go to the next value position. For example, if someone picks a financial function with 3 arguments, the function will be displayed, followed by a pair of parenthesis containing two commas. The insertion point would be located between the open parenthesis and the first comma. The first TAB would move the insertion point in between the two commas; the second, between the second comma and the close parenthesis; the third, after the close parenthesis.
• User-defined keyboard layouts, including button sizes (from buttons as small as the popup keyboard to as large as the builtin calculator) and the option of not having any buttons, using grafitti for all input. When normal calculators would switch between modes (financial, trig, etc), this one would change the entire layout. Again, I've been thinking about this for a while, and customcalc implemented it recently.
• History pulldowns of both the formulas entered and the results, with the ability to insert any item into the expression area. In addition, allow for a scrolling history list that is always visible, if the keyboard layout leaves enough room for one.
• Exporting the history to a Memo. I think I've seen this somewhere, so it's not original either.
• The ability to insert a variable by name (default) or by value. Being able to insert by name would make a nice shortcut for entering "long_variable_name =" though I'm not sure about how to deal with this.