the change wiki:Calculator/Feature requests

Non-logged-in users can also make feature requests in the 💬 discussion discussion page.

General

• Have a margin of error for each datapoint, so you can combine all your high and low estimates into one calculation.
  • Maybe it could even generate a popup with a distribution curve (idk maybe that's too complicated to implement).
  • Ranges are supported by Frink, but not GNU Units. The calculator is currently powered by GNU Units. Switching to Frink might come with a lot of complications (...)( For one, Java Runtime Environment would need to be installed on the web server. If the Frink program has to load every time a user makes a calculation, it could be very slow. Maybe there's a way to keep one instance of Frink running and feed calculations through it. This could take a lot of work to implement with threading etc. Or maybe running one instance of Frink per user session would be a good idea. Or maybe we could make a program in Java that uses the Frink Java Library. Lots of design decisions would need to be made. Also, some current datapoints would need to be updated (both in the database and inline on wikipages), because in Frink, the operator-precedence of implied multiplication is lower than division; in GNU Units, it is higher. )

Calculations embedded on wikipages

• Ability to split calculations onto multiple lines, for better readability.

• Green sections on pages would benefit from having some kinda notice like "click a part of the equation for more details" (whenever there are 1 or more datapoints in the equation). Wiki writers shouldn't have to manually say it every time.

• The 'from previous calculation' box could really benefit from having the numerical value in it (preferrably in the 'units wanted' of the previous calculation. Is this easy to implement?

• Better error handling: Currently, syntax errors will bleed into the next calculations and produce messages that don't even make sense.
  • Better graceful failure when datapoints aren't available. Just give some notice - maybe keep the equation the way it is, but put the result as 'unknown - missing data points' and put the missing datapoints as red links which show a box "data unavailable - research is unfinished" (or if that takes to long, then at least just have the datapoints as red text).

Tables

• Alternative 'span'-type calculations that can fit inside tables. Should show just the result, but as a link that shows a popup with the equation (...)( should act basically the same as the popups of you currently get when clicking on datapoints - because the subpopup problem is already solved there ). Ideally, this should load last, so you can have your summary table at the top of the page, one that depends on calculations below it.
  • Implementation idea subpage: /Spreadsheets

Common calculator

• Need a "copy wikitext" button beside each datapoint

• Maybe the user interface should have a right arrow (forward) instead of "Link", and a left arrow (back) instead of "Do another calculation".

• Maybe have some easy way to pull datapoints from wiki pages
  • box to paste wikitext into?
  • or some automatic thing when you publish a page? in which case, how would it handle multiple datapoints of the same name? too complicated; do the first option instead

See also

• the change wiki:Calculator/Known bugs
• the change wiki:Expandables/Feature requests