Release Digest: GNOME, July 27, 2004

gcalctool v5.5.0

Gcalctool is the default GNOME desktop calculator.

It has Basic, Financial and Scientific modes. Internally it uses multiple precision arithmetic to produce results to a high degree of accuracy.

This release is for consideration for GNOME 2.7 assuming the release team are okay with this late feature request (see previous email from me on that).

Note that gcalctool now requires the Gtk+ libraries that comes with GNOME 2.6 or later in order to build.

Changes since the last gcalctool version (4.4.8).

• Major new release of gcalctool. Incorporates an arithmetic operator precedence mode (currently the default why it's been debugged). To get the old style, uncheck View->Use Arithmetic Precedence from the menu bar.
• The "(" and ")" buttons have moved from the scientific mode into the Basic mode so that they are now available to users who need them but not everything that the Scientific mode provides.
• There is a footer message area that provides feedback.
• The display area now has an horizontal scrollbar.
• Typing in the keyboard shortcuts for the various gcalctool buttons autocompletes their entry into the display area.
• Tooltips show button's shortcut.

This work comes from Sami Pietila in Finland and fixes up one of the oldest bugs against gcalctool (bug #121710).

For testing purposes, the default mode is currently to use Arithmetic Operator Precedence. If this version of gcalctool is going into GNOME 2.8, it is still to be decided whether it will remain the default there.

We are looking for folks to give this new version of gcalctool a good testing and to report back any problems found as soon as possible. As with all new code, it is expected there will be a few bugs lurking that need to be found and fixed.

There is a known problem with arithmetic operator precdence mode not displaying correcly when "Show Thousands Separtor" is checked. See;

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=148515

You can download this new version from:

http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gcalctool/5.5/

[Although some of the ftp mirrors may take a little while to sync].