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by Etherlord87 1563 days ago
I am a Windows power user, and the default Windows calculator is one of very few programs bundled with the OS that I actually use - and I use it quite frequently.

And I click on the number digits.

Why?

1. Usually I only click on a few buttons, for example I paste some number, then press / then 2, and then typically ENTER key on the numpad (because I can just press it with the thumb of the hand still holding the mouse). Why should I move my hand from the mouse to the keyboard in order to just press two keys? And then I would also need to check if Num Lock is enabled.

2. I had a phase trying Emacs and Vim and eventually decided I don't care about being more efficient at text editing. I want to edit the text effortlessly, and I find selecting text with mouse, or pressing arrow keys repeatedly, actually requiring less effort from me. Yes, it takes more time, but it's not a time lost, I'm thinking about some problem, and no part of my brain needs to think what kind of text editing function I should use. Likewise, clicking a few buttons in a calculator takes more time, but it's not a race. If I have to make a lot of calculations, I'm more likely to use Excel, so it's rare that I actually type stuff into the calculator.

3. Sometimes my left hand is simply not available (I'm petting my dog or eating something or maybe holding my laptop), and while I have a numpad, using functions like sine would require my right hand to travel. In similar vein, sometimes instead of Ctrl+clicking on a link to open it in a new tab, I just right-click, and choose a context option. It does annoy me slightly, but sometimes not enough to start using my left hand.

1 comments

Your use cases are valid and should be respected and supported. What I was saying is, there are other people who prefer keyboard for efficiency, and they don't need keypad. Make it optional and hideable so that all users are happy. It's very simple change in terms of code diff, but it seems very hard in terms of design choice since even Microsoft doesn't get it.
Making the keypad optional adds user confusion. It might be a worthwhile tradeoff if doing so is necessary to save screen space, but if the keypad is actually accounting for such a significant portion of your screen real estate, I'd love to see your monitor.
As I hinted in my previous comment, power users of Windows, don't use apps bundled with Windows! :D

You can download a calculator that is designed to your preferences. I actually wrote a calculator in Autohotkey that was a keylogger constantly checking if last typed characters can be interpreted as a mathematical expression - if so, the expression was evaluated and displayed as a tooltip, and pressing a shortcut could be pressed to paste an equal sign and that evaluated value. Never finished it though, demotivated by how hard it was to port to other OSes.