Status Bar Calculator

I just realized I had never officially “branded” the extension with the MIT License as I had planned to do for some time now. Well, here it is:

Copyright (c) 2008 Christopher McCulloh

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

You can check out a copy from my subversion repository here (this has been available for some time now): http://statusbarcalculator.com/statusbarcalculator

Write a patch/feature/etc and if you submit it (and I accept it, which will most likely happen unless it just doesn’t work) I’ll include you on the official firefox page as an author or contributor (depending on the size of your submission).

Special thanks to everyone who has already contributed so far:

• Tom Kennedy
• Jerrie
• Mike Daniels
• Fernando Aguirre Baeza

Some feature ideas:

• Make the -, +, *, /, ^ keys work with Mac OSX
• Make preferences to allow moving the calculator around in the browser
• Allow for localizations
• Number history for each textbox (so you can click on the box and see a pop-up with all previous numbers you have typed in it in case you want to go back to a certain point in the calculation)

Other than that, the code was written as a college project (so it’s not that spectacular). It could really use a massive overhaul, maybe integrate jQuery or something.

If you are interested in working on this project, and want to talk with me about it, feel free to comment on this post, or send me an e-mail at cmcculloh at this domain.

I’ll probably be replicating this extension in Google Chrome when they come out with extensions for that…

Version 2.1 has been approved by Mozilla and is now the latest public version available through the addons section at mozilla.com.

I appologize to everyone who has been waiting and waiting for the new version of this add-on with official ff3 compatability. It’s almost here.

I fixed the problem where the number would calculate twice when you hit the “=” key.

I’ve submitted the updated file for review. Who knows how long it will be before that goes through. Until then you can download it yourself from the homepage, or by click on “more versions” at the mozilla page.

Thanks to everyone who has been using the add-on, and especially to those of you leaving feedback/reviewing it! I hear your pain non-American users! I’ve got “localization” options in the hopper for future enhancements…

Way back when I was first creating the Status-bar Calculator, I kept a little journal about my progress so that in a few years (now) when I came back to the project, I would know what the heck I was thinking when I wrote the code I wrote.

It’s a good thing, because the code is of the caliber you would expect from a Senior in college graduating with a “New Media” (read: art) degree. Coming back to the code after two years of professional Java/PHP development… well… let’s just say some of it is not pretty (but it works!).

Anyways, some poor souls stumbled upon my “tutorials” and actually managed to learn something from them! One of them is even listed as a contributor on this project (since they sent in some code snippets. Thanks!). Well, it’s time to give them a shout-out.

I learned today that Tom Kennedy somehow managed to glean knowledge from my “tutorials” and went on to create some much bigger (and better) extension:

Addictive Typing Lessons

Numpad Typing Drills

Nice job Tom!

I’m considering updating, and cleaning up the tutorials and making them part of this site.

Click the link on the homepage to try out the new version. Updated for FF3.0b4!

Now with keyboard shortcuts and awesome new icons (thanks Jerrie!!!).

Currently pending review by the Mozilla team.

If you use the extension and notice any bugs, please let me know! I will give you contributor credit if you find bugs. Thanks!

After almost two years without touching the code, I’ve made some enhancements.

First and foremost, I’ve added keyboard shortcuts. That’s right, I know how long many of you have been waiting for this. Well, it’s finally here, but it’s buggy. It works, but it causes your browser to throw random javascript errors now and then. You won’t notice unless you have firebug installed, and the errors don’t actually affect anything at all as far as I know. They just randomly happen. I haven’t decided what to do about them yet. Do I swallow them? Do I spend a whole bunch of time figuring out why they are happening, only to determine I can’t actually fix them? Do I try a different method entirely? I’m Probably going to try the second, then third option, before resorting to the first option.

Anyways, here are the new short-cuts:

Ctrl+alt+c: Opens and closes the calculator, also sets focus to the first textbox

Ctrl+alt+(either numpad4 or tab, your choice, both work): Clears both textboxes and focuses on the first textbox

Shift+Tab (while in second textbox): As always (this one even worked before) sets focus to first textbox and highlights whatever is in that textbox.

I have some decisions to make here. Stealing the Ctrl+alt combination could be bad. Do other extensions use this? Is this a browser functionality I don’t know about? I may make it something like Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C, or maybe just holding down X+C+V all at the same time (or something like that).

Second major thing you will notice is the new graphics. These are temporary because I don’t have confirmation that the person who contributed them was the one that created them. I want to be sure these were created for me, and that I have permission to use them before I make them officially a part of the project. If you made these images, please contact me. I’ve attempted to contact you through e-mail already, but have received no response. Feel free to leave a comment here!

Third thing you may or may not notice is an updated install manifest (so updated extension description and a few other minor things).

Something you won’t notice probably is just some code optimization. After two years of professional development experience, going back and reviewing my code is a little scary. I need to basically re-write the whole thing, but I’d rather get these long awaited features working so people can have something to use while I do it.

I need some testers and some feedback please. You can go here to install the beta, and if you encounter a bug, or have any suggestions/insights feel free to leave a comment on this post.

If you want the source code, just download this, and rename it with a .zip extension. I still have yet to place it under an open source license, so technically I own all rights to it at the moment. BUT, I am planning on putting it under the MIT License. I really appreciate the code snippets I’ve gotten from a few people already for bug-fixes/features, and will very much appreciate any other snippets I get. Making a “thanks for the help!” page is very high on my things to do list. Anyone who submits anything (or even just beta tests and gives helpful feedback) will earn a spot on my thanks page, as well as (if they want) a banner link back to their site.

If you want to check the project out of the subversion repository, point Subversion/TortoiseSVN here: http://statusbarcalculator.com/statusbarcalculator

After almost two full years of hibernation, the Status Bar Calculator project is coming back online. Firefox 3.0 is coming out soon, and we want to be ready.

So what does this mean? It means:

1. A website

2. An Open Source license

3. A forums

4. NEW FEATURES!

What kind of features? You tell me. I want to hear what you want. Some current thoughts rolling around in my head (and where I will start):

1. Better graphics. Let’s get rid of the ugly mono-tone calculator. Someone was nice enough to create and send me a nice shiny new calculator graphic. I’ve contacted them to confirm they own it, and find out how to properly credit them.

2. Improved UI. That’s right. Prepare yourself for shortcut keys. Specifically, we need a short-cut key to open and close the thing, and a short-cut key to jump back to the first text-box.

What else? I’ll be in active development over the next few months, so please, leave comments here or in the forums for feature requests (as well as any bugs you may have found)!