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The one thing I don't get about all those calculator applications is the existence of the keypad. Like, the users already have the keypad right in front them ca

The one thing I don't get about all those calculator applications is the existence of the keypad. Like, the users already have the keypad right in front them called keyboard (the names literally share the "key" part). Why would anyone instead choose to use mouse to click those tiny buttons? I feel most calc designers still stuck at the skeuomorphism and never jump out of the box to think about what user really needs. The only calculators I know that makes keypad optional/hideable are SpeedCrunch and Qalculate!, and now this.

xupybd 5y ago
We have calculators open on our machine label computers. Those computers don't have a keyboard only a touch screen. Without the keypad these computers could not use the windows calculator. That said this is an unusual use case.
- sidpatil 5y ago
  If someone was trying to enter text into a running application on that machine, wouldn't an on-screen keyboard pop up? (Unless that's been disabled, of course.)
  - xupybd 5y ago
    No it doesn't pop up automatically. It can be brought up but you have to find it. Anything other than day to day use is done via remote connection.
mewse 5y ago
“skeuomorphism” isn’t even a real UX concept; it’s just been carefully designed to look like one.
- Bud 5y ago
  Well played.
fendy3002 5y ago
Well until you need scientific calculator computation, such as log, sin / cos, rad / deg, root.
- Aachen 5y ago
  I think they were talking about the number keys, and perhaps plus and equals (but that might need shift depending on the keyboard and be less convenient), not cosine and family.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  Your keyboard has letters on it. You can type all of those out.
  - CydeWeys 5y ago
    The one disadvantage of that is you cannot easily see all available functions at once. It loses discoverability. Autocomplete on the input prompt will help rectify that somewhat, but only somewhat.
    - qsort 5y ago
      The discoverability argument doesn't make a lot of sense for a calculator app. One might want to list the content of a directory without knowing that the magic word is "ls", but there is a 0% chance that someone wants to compute the cosine of a number but can't figure out to type "cos".
      - jart 5y ago
        But is it cos x, cos(x), cos[x], math.cos(x), or \cos x? Calculators are usually simple enough that all the ops can be buttons. So why not do it? There's always alternatives like Python, Mathematica, Maxima, Fricas, etc. which don't really bother with the buttons, because if they did, it'd look like a Chinese typewriter.
        5y ago
krallja 5y ago
What about Calca or Soulver? They don’t have keypads at all. They’re more like REPLs for calculation languages.
bufferoverflow 5y ago
Touchscreens
topspin 5y ago
SpeQ Mathematics has been my go-to for many years. The times have left it behind, but it's still too handy to forego. It's a simple, vanishingly small (132KB) REPL.
antholeole 5y ago
Desmos.com/scientific is my go to. Best calculator ever - understands some LaTeX but also has the buttons for scenarios where I don’t know the LaTeX
- avmich 5y ago
  If you have a J interpreter installed, I'd like to see what preferred calculators can offer.
user3939382 5y ago
Checkout Soulver on macOS. It’s awesome! It’s like an old paper tape calculator on steroids. It supports variables and comments, for example. Also, no virtual keypad :)
- upbeat_general 5y ago
  +1 The real draw is the unit support (dates, times, currency, etc etc) but makes it feel natural.
- ksec 5y ago
  Still waiting for Soulver update on iOS .
Etherlord87 5y ago
I am a Windows power user, and the default Windows calculator is one of very few programs bundled with the OS that I actually use - and I use it quite frequently. And I click on the number digits. Why? 1. Usually I only click on a few buttons, for example I paste some number, then press / then 2, and then typically ENTER key on the numpad (because I can just press it with the thumb of the hand still holding the mouse). Why should I move my hand from the mouse to the keyboard in order to just press two keys? And then I would also need to check if Num Lock is enabled. 2. I had a phase trying Emacs and Vim and eventually decided I don't care about being more efficient at text editing. I want to edit the text effortlessly, and I find selecting text with mouse, or pressing arrow keys repeatedly, actually requiring less effort from me. Yes, it takes more time, but it's not a time lost, I'm thinking about some problem, and no part of my brain needs to think what kind of text editing function I should use. Likewise, clicking a few buttons in a calculator takes more time, but it's not a race. If I have to make a lot of calculations, I'm more likely to use Excel, so it's rare that I actually type stuff into the calculator. 3. Sometimes my left hand is simply not available (I'm petting my dog or eating something or maybe holding my laptop), and while I have a numpad, using functions like sine would require my right hand to travel. In similar vein, sometimes instead of Ctrl+clicking on a link to open it in a new tab, I just right-click, and choose a context option. It does annoy me slightly, but sometimes not enough to start using my left hand.
- CrendKing 5y ago
  Your use cases are valid and should be respected and supported. What I was saying is, there are other people who prefer keyboard for efficiency, and they don't need keypad. Make it optional and hideable so that all users are happy. It's very simple change in terms of code diff, but it seems very hard in terms of design choice since even Microsoft doesn't get it.
  - paledot 5y ago
    Making the keypad optional adds user confusion. It might be a worthwhile tradeoff if doing so is necessary to save screen space, but if the keypad is actually accounting for such a significant portion of your screen real estate, I'd love to see your monitor.
mackrevinack 5y ago
> The only calculators I know that makes keypad optional/hideable are SpeedCrunch and Qalculate!, and now this. or theres "invisible" calculators like this[1] that do away with GUI altogether. microsoft's onenote has something similar built in as well 1: https://github.com/davebrny/in-line-calculator https://github.com/davebrny/in-line-calculator

xupybd 5y ago

We have calculators open on our machine label computers. Those computers don't have a keyboard only a touch screen. Without the keypad these computers could not use the windows calculator. That said this is an unusual use case.

sidpatil 5y ago
If someone was trying to enter text into a running application on that machine, wouldn't an on-screen keyboard pop up? (Unless that's been disabled, of course.)
- xupybd 5y ago
  No it doesn't pop up automatically. It can be brought up but you have to find it. Anything other than day to day use is done via remote connection.

mewse 5y ago

“skeuomorphism” isn’t even a real UX concept; it’s just been carefully designed to look like one.

Bud 5y ago
Well played.

fendy3002 5y ago

Well until you need scientific calculator computation, such as log, sin / cos, rad / deg, root.

Aachen 5y ago
I think they were talking about the number keys, and perhaps plus and equals (but that might need shift depending on the keyboard and be less convenient), not cosine and family.
charcircuit 5y ago
Your keyboard has letters on it. You can type all of those out.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  The one disadvantage of that is you cannot easily see all available functions at once. It loses discoverability. Autocomplete on the input prompt will help rectify that somewhat, but only somewhat.
  - qsort 5y ago
    The discoverability argument doesn't make a lot of sense for a calculator app. One might want to list the content of a directory without knowing that the magic word is "ls", but there is a 0% chance that someone wants to compute the cosine of a number but can't figure out to type "cos".
    - jart 5y ago
      But is it cos x, cos(x), cos[x], math.cos(x), or \cos x? Calculators are usually simple enough that all the ops can be buttons. So why not do it? There's always alternatives like Python, Mathematica, Maxima, Fricas, etc. which don't really bother with the buttons, because if they did, it'd look like a Chinese typewriter.
      - 5y ago

krallja 5y ago

What about Calca or Soulver? They don’t have keypads at all. They’re more like REPLs for calculation languages.

bufferoverflow 5y ago

Touchscreens

topspin 5y ago

SpeQ Mathematics has been my go-to for many years. The times have left it behind, but it's still too handy to forego. It's a simple, vanishingly small (132KB) REPL.

antholeole 5y ago

Desmos.com/scientific is my go to. Best calculator ever - understands some LaTeX but also has the buttons for scenarios where I don’t know the LaTeX

avmich 5y ago
If you have a J interpreter installed, I'd like to see what preferred calculators can offer.

user3939382 5y ago

Checkout Soulver on macOS. It’s awesome! It’s like an old paper tape calculator on steroids. It supports variables and comments, for example. Also, no virtual keypad :)

upbeat_general 5y ago
+1 The real draw is the unit support (dates, times, currency, etc etc) but makes it feel natural.
ksec 5y ago
Still waiting for Soulver update on iOS .

Etherlord87 5y ago

I am a Windows power user, and the default Windows calculator is one of very few programs bundled with the OS that I actually use - and I use it quite frequently. And I click on the number digits. Why? 1. Usually I only click on a few buttons, for example I paste some number, then press / then 2, and then typically ENTER key on the numpad (because I can just press it with the thumb of the hand still holding the mouse). Why should I move my hand from the mouse to the keyboard in order to just press two keys? And then I would also need to check if Num Lock is enabled. 2. I had a phase trying Emacs and Vim and eventually decided I don't care about being more efficient at text editing. I want to edit the text effortlessly, and I find selecting text with mouse, or pressing arrow keys repeatedly, actually requiring less effort from me. Yes, it takes more time, but it's not a time lost, I'm thinking about some problem, and no part of my brain needs to think what kind of text editing function I should use. Likewise, clicking a few buttons in a calculator takes more time, but it's not a race. If I have to make a lot of calculations, I'm more likely to use Excel, so it's rare that I actually type stuff into the calculator. 3. Sometimes my left hand is simply not available (I'm petting my dog or eating something or maybe holding my laptop), and while I have a numpad, using functions like sine would require my right hand to travel. In similar vein, sometimes instead of Ctrl+clicking on a link to open it in a new tab, I just right-click, and choose a context option. It does annoy me slightly, but sometimes not enough to start using my left hand.

CrendKing 5y ago
Your use cases are valid and should be respected and supported. What I was saying is, there are other people who prefer keyboard for efficiency, and they don't need keypad. Make it optional and hideable so that all users are happy. It's very simple change in terms of code diff, but it seems very hard in terms of design choice since even Microsoft doesn't get it.
- paledot 5y ago
  Making the keypad optional adds user confusion. It might be a worthwhile tradeoff if doing so is necessary to save screen space, but if the keypad is actually accounting for such a significant portion of your screen real estate, I'd love to see your monitor.

mackrevinack 5y ago

> The only calculators I know that makes keypad optional/hideable are SpeedCrunch and Qalculate!, and now this. or theres "invisible" calculators like this[1] that do away with GUI altogether. microsoft's onenote has something similar built in as well 1: https://github.com/davebrny/in-line-calculator https://github.com/davebrny/in-line-calculator