[43S] Let's try a poll on the new forum :-)

[walter b]

(01-25-2014 02:08 PM)Ed Wright Wrote:  As long as we're still voting, I vote for b. The worst that can happen is my vote doesn't count. I think going in to menus for something like trig functions is unnecessarily cumbersome. Yes, I could assign the trig function to the numeric keys, but then they're not labeled. I suspect almost everyone will assign something to those keys, they may as well have a default definition. Cluttered keyboard? What about cluttered menus?

Part 1: This poll is closed. You see the results above. You can read my assessment of the result above in this thread. You need one hand to count the late votes. Even those didn't change the result so far.

Part 2: At the bottom line, the poll leaves the decision to the developers (you can't force us to a certain design anyway ). Seems difficult to imagine a calculator you can't operate yet. Please let me try an example:

Assume you are confronted with a problem containing three trigonometric functions in a row - let's say SIN, COS, and ARCTAN. Making it real simple to follow, assume the problem looks like

ARCTAN (SIN 12° + COS² 34°) ,

for example. Now let me further assume startup default settings (DEG !). How to solve the problem?

With layout a: 34 TRIG cos ENTER × 12 sin + arctan (i.e. 11 keystrokes).

With layout b: 34 f COS ENTER × 12 f SIN + f TAN^-1 (i.e. 13 keystrokes).

As mentioned earlier more than once, TRIG will contain

sin arcsin cos arccos tan arctan

in its unshifted line (and the hyperbolic functions in its f-shifted line, but that's not really important here). The menu TRIG will remain on screen until EXITed explicitly (then its screen space will be taken by MyMenu) or another menu is called. Easy rules, aren't they?

Further information: 1) MyMenu is a user-loadable menu of up to 18 items; it will show up as long as no other menu is called. It's empty at factory default, i.e. when you get your 43S. 2) You are free to assign whatever will make you happy to whatever location on the keyboard except USER. Your assignment will become effective in USER mode. 3) It goes without saying that everything written about the 43S is 100% pure vapourware (TM) so far.

HTH

d:-)