Can anybody please sanity check my Free42/Plus42 skin before I submit it?

[MickM]

Note: This is effectively a repost of something I posted in the General Forum yesterday but I've decided the right place for it is in this forum instead. Could the moderator please remove my post in other forum. Thanks.

I have developed a new skin for the Free42/Plus42 emulators (available via https://thomasokken.com) and I'd appreciate some feedback on it before submitting it to the developer's website. It's kind of radically different and I've optimized it for engineering notation numeric entry (e.g. 1.2pF, 2.3µA etc.) and dealing with physical constants & properties. I developed it to make my life as a scientist and electrical engineer better. Anybody out there willing to give this a shot? A zip file is attached and I guess the right place to start is with the Readme.txt file. Note that the documentation references a 1080 pixel wide skin, but that has been removed to accommodate the forum's 1MB attachment file size limit.


  Mueck_EV_640.zip (Size: 981.93 KB / Downloads: 41)

[agarza]

I like the buttons and their arrangement.

Tested on a MacBook, display is huge! Not useful on a Mac, covers about 1/3 of the screen.

The only thing I see is that if you press twice the engineering notation, the exponent is messed up.

[MickM]

Thanks agarza. Interestingly, I had never tried this skin on my computer. I designed it for my iPhone 13 mini and just hoped it would work OK on other phones. That being said, I just tried it on my Mac and it behaves differently - it always shows the text:
{ HOME }
on the top line. That's nothing I want to see, but I don't know how to get rid of it.

I also see that the 42s comes up in a large window on the Mac - my first impulse was to simply drag on a corner of the window to make it smaller, but apparently that's not an available feature of this program! :-(. The 640 pixel width skin is already taller than the screen on my MacBook Pro, and the 1080 version is even taller still. This doesn't seem reasonable - I'm going to hunt around for some option to scale down the size on a Mac.

Regarding the double pressing of an engineering exponent key, I've already seen that but I don't think it can be fixed. This is in the same class as having manually entered the wrong value on the calculator - you just have to backspace over the error and enter the right digits. All those buttons do is execute a macro that sequentially enters key presses for e.g. E +/- 1 2 to save you from typing "E-12". If you decide you've hit the wrong button then you have to backspace to before the "E" and then hit another one of the engineering notation keys. There is no way for the macro to know a "wrong" macro has just been pressed and to do the required amount of backspace presses beforehand.

Have you been able to try this skin on a phone? How about the CONST button (on shift-π)

[Vincent Weber]

Nice! But no shortcut for equations... I'm using them a lot!!

[MickM]

(08-23-2023 07:11 AM)Vincent Weber Wrote:  Nice! But no shortcut for equations... I'm using them a lot!!

Could you please provide a couple examples of what functionality you're after in a calculator for an equation shortcut (sorry, I've never used them much).

[Vincent Weber]

Just the EQN key on the standard skin!

[MickM]

(08-23-2023 12:29 PM)Vincent Weber Wrote:  Just the EQN key on the standard skin!

Sorry, I thought you meant the standard HP42S skin. You were clearly referring to the EQN function on the "standard" Plus42 skin. I just figured those "standard" functions were chosen by the developer as a default example of what could be done with an extra row of keys i.e. the point being that this calculator/skin was something more open for customization than cast in stone. He made his favorite flavor, and I made mine, others will make theirs. I could easily be talked into dumping several functions I never use for other more popular ones (such as EQN), but then people may complain about those trade offs. My primary goal was to not lose any original HP42S functionality on the buttons and to add my own custom functionality on another row. Regarding the original functionality, I've never really used several functions (e.g. PROB, STAT, and especially PRINT) but I was too "scared" to touch them. If you'd like EQN instead of PRINT I'd be more than happy to do that. I'd just be unclear about how unpopular that would be with the PRINT crowd, and note that it would also demote EQN to a shifted function. I won't give up on pi as it's own button - I use that way too much.

[Vincent Weber]

I see.
I think it will stick with Thomas' Plus42 skin. The same as the 42S, save for the extra 2 rows of keys, and the replacement of the now useless "TOP. FCN" with TVM. The 42S is actually so sacred to me that I don't want to mess up with it the 2 extra rows are just an addition of the extra functionally, plus exposing some important original 42S functions that were buried in the menus: X<>, RUP, %CH, VIEW. And there is a second skin that is shown upon editing equations, to optimize equation entry. Just perfect, when you care about equations

[agarza]

On a standard iPhone 11, you can easily fit one maybe two more rows of buttons.
   

[MickM]

(08-23-2023 03:23 PM)agarza Wrote:  On a standard iPhone 11, you can easily fit one maybe two more rows of buttons.

Absolutely! I'm considering tackling that in future. I own an iPhone 13 mini (because I like keeping my phone in my shirt pocket instead of a briefcase) so I was looking for the best I could get in that form factor (with big enough keys and display for my older eyes).

[MickM]

In case anybody is interested, I've tweaked my skin some more and the graphic below is where I'm currently at (still haven't submitted it to Thomas yet). As always, any feedback is welcome.

It has been pointed out phones bigger than my iPhone 13 mini could easily hold another row of keys. Alternatively, the screen could be made larger for more lines of display (e.g. for graph plotting etc.). Frankly, I'm of two minds about adding another row - mostly because I'd have to think long and hard about what other 12 functions I'd add. I know Thomas has a row of blank keys across the top on his skin - that would be easy I guess, although I confess to not knowing what purpose they serve.
   

[Vincent Weber]

Thanks for putting the equation key!

But you also need to have a second skin for equation entry, with the useful shortcuts (:, =, []), otherwise entering a equation is a nightmare...

What about units and DIR keys?

[Jaco@cocoon-creations.com]

(08-26-2023 07:28 PM)MickM Wrote:  In case anybody is interested, I've tweaked my skin some more and the graphic below is where I'm currently at (still haven't submitted it to Thomas yet). As always, any feedback is welcome.

A really well thought out layout.
I'll install it as soon as it is available.