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Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#81

Post by smush »

gdulli wrote: post #49
Someone1234 wrote: post #24

I might try to commit to this. I've always found the "App" version of Calculator lacking compare to its Win32 predecessor. In particular History. On the old Calculator you could double-click the history and edit the equation, and get a new result, no go on the App. Plus the Programmer UI, while being more powerful is actually harder to use since the information is now split between two screens rather than one. Oh and…

I use this: https://winaero.com/blog/get-calculator-from-windows-8-and-w... I don't know if it has the features you're missing, I use it because I don't like the look and feel of the new apps.

Very nice, and it even has a chocolatey package via choco install oldcalc so I can do my [Windows]+R calc and have the Win8 calculator open, very nice indeed!

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#82

Post by mikepurvis »

smush wrote: post #79
turrini wrote: post #7

https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator#data--telemetry "This project collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more. Telemetry is disabled in development builds by default, and can be enabled with the SEND_TELEMETRY build flag." Even on a simple calculator.

> Telemetry is disabled in development builds by default So it's not ideal from a privacy perspective to have to worry about usage telemetry in a calculator. But at least there is the silver lining of having telemetry disabled by default _somewhere_, even if it is only for dev builds.

To be fair, it's a nightmare looking at reports that are all clogged up with crashes and whatever from your developers making messes at their desks running non-release code.

Obviously one option is just a dev build flag in your telemetry payload, but I can see the logic in just turning it off altogether.

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#83

Post by WorldMaker »

ktjfi wrote: post #18
valleyjo wrote: post #6

I worked on a win32 application for my first job out of college. My boss told me "want to learn win32 and c++, go program a windows calculator clone." It was a great project to get started and I did learn a lot. Now I have something to compare my work to ha

This calculator is not written using Win32. (Why the downvotes?)

It's still useful for comparing the C++ parts. Could even be useful for learning how modern UWP XAML compares to classic Win32 approaches in C++.

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#84

Post by tombert »

temac wrote: post #72
tombert wrote: post #36

This is cool, but I really wish they'd release the source for the original Notepad. No real reason other than "this software was really important to me when I was a kid". As it stands, though, Calculator is not something I've particularly cared about in the Windows world; pretty much anyone here could write a simple calculator app in an afternoon. Still, I am glad MS is slowly becoming more OSS-friendly; I doubt anyo…

IIRC Notepad source code is in a Windows SDK. Probably an old one, but it only started to be actively maintained quite recently (and even then: only very lightly), so the source code you can get will likely cover most of its lifespan for now. I'm not sure the source of notepad is that much interesting, though. I mean, yeah, nice to have out of curiosity, maybe, but I'm not sure I would get anything from looking at it…

I have this kind of masochistic fantasy of rewriting Notepad directly in a modern language. No new features, an identical port in Scheme or something.

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#85

Post by WorldMaker »

cbsks wrote: post #68

The "help wanted" label on some of the GitHub issues[0] is interesting to me. Presumably there are Microsoft employees who are being paid to work on Calculator, are they trying to crowd-source their jobs? I should convince my company to open source the project I am working on so I can offload some of my work too ;) [0]: https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/issues?q=is%3Aissue+...

It's something of a GitHub-wide standard/best-practice to have a "help wanted" or "probably easy" or "good first issue" label:

https://help.github.com/en/articles/helping-new-contributors...

It's the Open Source issue tracker equivalent of the "Welcome mat". It doesn't necessarily mean that Microsoft's employees here need help, but it certainly shows that they welcome it.

(Which is a very useful indicator for engagement and shows presumably some stake in actually continuing to develop Calculator out in the open, as opposed it being a one time or rarely-if-ever code drop.)

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#86

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

dtrailin wrote: post #76
turrini wrote: post #7

https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator#data--telemetry "This project collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more. Telemetry is disabled in development builds by default, and can be enabled with the SEND_TELEMETRY build flag." Even on a simple calculator.

Basically every Android and IOS app you use collects telemetry (which you usually cannot disable) for UX purposes but suddenly when Microsoft does it it's a Big Deal. I don't see the issue with refining UX using anonymous data if it improves the product for the end users. Every high quality commercial app does this.

F-Droid maintains a repository of open-source only android apps, and either doesn't allow apps that has telemetry or at least flags apps which may have such anti-features:

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#87

Post by shawnz »

sebazzz wrote: post #27
shawnz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shall we see anything bigger than VS Code? .NET framework?

That has no use, as you can almost certainly not install and use it anywhere. .NET framework is an OS component you probably don't want to mess with. And Microsoft neither, given they only innovate in .NET Core nowadays.

OK, .NET core then. The point is the same.

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#88

Post by mywittyname »

gpm wrote: post #42
nathell wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most trivial? Not by a long shot. What about WINVER?

Not windows, but `true` has to take the cake for the most trivial program, the portion of my comment after the second : is a valid implementation:

Is true a program? I thought it was a command built into the shell.

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#89

Post by yellowapple »

criddell wrote: post #25
yellowapple wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I should be disturbed or amused by Microsoft putting telemetry in (at this rate) literally every one of its products. Like, what the hell do they even track? I guess the obvious ones are things like application crashes, but now I'm curious if they have the data on the most common calculations, folks' favorite numbers, etc.

I'm pretty sure I've entered 58008 in every calculator I've ever touched. That's probably in my Microsoft file somewhere...

And I'm sure your ads are targeted accordingly ;)

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#90

Post by m1el »

Someone1234 wrote: post #54
Titanous wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what they are actually collecting: https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/blob/master/src/Calc...

That's some pretty boring information overall. One which might be cause for concern is LogInvalidInputPasted() specifically because pastedExpression is included in the Telemetry Event. I also have questions on LogConversionResult(). Why is that recording NetworkAccessBehavior or the raw conversion values? Wouldn't knowing the FromUnit/ToUnit be enough to know how much something is being used?

Conversion between currencies requires access to the API that provides conversion rates.
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