simple bc widget
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008I’ve knocked up a simple calculator dashboard widget for OS X. It doesn’t look that pretty, but it utilises the power of bc, and provides a quick and easy front end for it.
The release notes:
/* * Simple bc Widget * URL: http://www.3thirty.net/simple-bc * Author: Ethan Smith * Created: 22/10/08 * * Simple dashborad calculator utilising the baisc calculator, bc. This is really just an interface that * passes exactly what you enter to the bc command and prints out the result. The idea behind this widget * is to make it really quick and easy to perform simple calculations. * * Some of the things that this widget does (aka why this is better than the commandline): * - Typing anywhere on the widget will start typing in the sum box * - Pressing enter will perform the calculation * - Pressing escape will clear the textfield * - Starting a calculation with an arithmetic operator (+-/*) will perform the calculation against * the previous result * - The "previous result variable" allows you to substitute the previous result at any point in * the current calculation (note that this can be a single letter or a longer word, but you'll have * all sorts of problems if you try to use a number!) * * Some of the bc features that are known to work: * - Enter almost anything and bc will do it's best to make a calculation out of it * Example "xyz + 14 - ff * 2 - (v + c)" = 14 * - multiline calculations are supported, with a semicolon between each calculation. The results * will also be separated by semicolons. * Example: "10+4; 10+5;" = 14;15 * - variable assignment works. Just be careful that variable names don't get trodden on by the * "previous result variable". * Example: "x=12; x=x+48; x-10" = 50 * * Notes on the implementation of bc: * - this widget really just passes through the calculation almost exactly as entered. Try running * bc from the commandline, see "man bc" or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bc_(Unix) for more * - the scale (number of decimal places) is set to 3 by the widget */
Download simple-bc widget for OS X (zip, 48kb)