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programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
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God bless whoever at Microsoft decided to build Calculator Plus, an unsupported free upgrade for calc.exe. On the other hand.. who decided it was a good idea to skin the UI by default?
My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing! Now compare that "upgraded" UI to the windows default, which is thankfully still selectable via the View menu:
Perhaps boring, but far more usable. I know skinning is a matter of opinion to some degree, but-- come on. At least have a professional graphic designer put together a skin if you're going to traumatize the user with a non-standard UI. And even then, I doubt you should be doing it. You better have a damn good reason to deviate from the standard OS look and feel that users expect. For comparison, Windows Media Center does have a good reason to implement a radically different UI -- it's designed to be used from the couch with a remote.
Posted by Jeff Atwood View blog reactions
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I agree that skin is terrible. It would be cool if you could do your own through some kind of hack but I assume that's not possible.
I usually just use it. Switching to Classic mode every time will be a pain. Calc.exe has a problem if you run it as a restricted user it NEVER saves settings (set it at scientific, close, reopen). CalcPlus on the other hand actually saves the information.
I think it may be due to permissions and how it saves the information but I'm not quite certain. I just wish there was an option to replace Calc.exe with this so that the next time I go to use a calculator I'll use the right one. Having to remember that it's in the "Microsoft Calculator Plus" program group isn't always easy when you've been going to "Accessories" ever since Calc.exe was placed there. I think it goes back to 3.1
You should be able to replace calc.exe with this version-- I replace notepad.exe with Notepad2. It's kind of annoying (you have to override XP's built in File Protection) but it works. Here's the batch file I use:
copy notepad2.exe c:\windows\servicepackfiles\i386\notepad.exe
copy notepad2.exe c:\windows\system32\dllcache\notepad.exe
copy notepad2.exe c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe
copy notepad2.exe c:\windows\notepad.exe
You might also want to check out the PowerToy calculator http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
Sijin Joseph on September 14, 2004 04:09 AM| Content (c) 2008 Jeff Atwood. Logo image used with permission of the author. (c) 1993 Steven C. McConnell. All Rights Reserved. |
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