InstantCalc 1.6.1 for Classic MacOS
for instantaneous calculations, ©1996-2002

Installation and Removal

Download the InstantCalc package. It comes encoded in BinHex format as an 388 kB .hqx-archive. For decoding you need a decompression tool like StuffIt Expander. The package consists of the InstantCalc Control Panel and the Read Me file. Also included is the small application SimpleCalc which is more powerful than the normal desktop calculator.

InstantCalc is a Control Panel, therefore, it should reside in the Control Panels folder inside the System Folder to be operative. For this, drag InstantCalc onto the symbol of your System Folder. You should confirm to put InstantCalc to the Control Panels and then restart your Macintosh. When first started, InstantCalc creates a file in the folder Preferences inside the System Folder which holds the user setup and the registration data. In addition InstantCalc since v1.5 creates a file in the Preferences folder which holds the user defined functions. Beyond this, InstantCalc makes no permanent changes to your system and hard disk data. Therefore InstantCalc can easily be removed, just by drawing itself and its preference file into the trash.

For quick access, put SimpleCalc into the Apple Menu.

InstantCalc also can pop up an InstantWindow where calculations can be performed and exported by the clipboard. This is handy in cases when you want to do a calculation and there is no proper text field around. Simply press the hot key combination with an additional modifier key.

Setup

In the InstantCalc Control Panel you can change the:

hot key combination	<ctrl>-c is predefined. A function key (F1..F15) can be specified as an alternate hot key.
additional modifier key	<cmd>-key is predefined. Pressing the hot key combination plus the additional modifier key lets InstantCalc show up its InstantWindow where calculations can be performed and exported by the clipboard.
mouse click combination	<ctrl>-mouse-click is predefined. MacOS 8/9 users should be aware, that the <ctrl>-mouse-click combination is used for the contextual menus. In this case either add a modifier key (i.e. <shift>-<ctrl>- mouse-click) or disable the mouse click option.
numerical accuracy	defining the breaking conditions for the numerical methods (Newton solver and Romberg integration) the iteration stops when either the absolute or relative change of the result between successive iterations drops below the respective value. The predefined values are 10e-9 absolute and 10e-7 relative.
number of significant digits	defining the number of digits of the result. Minimum is 1 and maximum is 19. Since it is also possible to define the number of digits instantly, the maximum value of 19 is predefined.
number of decimal digits	defining the number of decimals of the result. Minimum is 1 and maximum is 19. Since it is also possible to define the number of decimals instantly, the maximum value of 19 is predefined.
modify help key setting	checked:	the help key is active only with the given modifier key(s)(this prevents loading the help system by accident)
	unchecked:	the help key operates normally

Changes to the setup take effect immediately after closing the InstantCalc Control Panel, without restarting your Macintosh. However, the program SimpleCalc (which belongs to the InstantCalc package) also uses the above preferences, but reads it only once at start-up. Therefore, if you made some changes within the InstantCalc Control Panel, having SimpleCalc open in the background, you may need to close and restart SimpleCalc after all.

Operation

InstantCalc operates on selected text and is invoked with either a hot key or a mouse click combination.

Upon invocation InstantCalc itself schedules a copy command for the selected text. Then it causes the front application to switch shortly to the background and again to the front after all. By this way it is guarenteed that the selected text is copied to the global scrap (the Clipboard) where InstantCalc can fetch it.

InstantCalc then analyses the copied text. If the clipboard contains no text (for any reason) InstantCalc simply issues a system beep. If it finds a valid mathematical expression, it does the calculation and replaces the content of the clipboard with the result. If the text in the clipboard is not a valid expression, InstantCalc prompts for correction with a small dialog displaying an error message and the error position in the expression.

Finally InstantCalc schedules a paste command. In almost all cases this will result in replacing the previously selected mathematical expression with its result. In most cases it is possible to undo this operation by entering the normal <cmd>-<z>, however, this depends on the capabilities of the host application. In some cases, the front application changes its context upon a foreground/background switch (i.e. the cursor moves to another position or the active input field becomes inactive), which normally affects the desired operation inappropriately. Try to use the mouse click combination for invoking InstantCalc in this case.

Sometimes you might want to keep the mathematical expression beside its result. This can be achieved simply by adding an equal sign "=" after the expression.

InstantCalc now can pop up an InstantWindow where calculations can be performed and exported by the clipboard. This is handy in cases where you want to do a calculation and there is no proper text field around. Simply press the hot key combination with an additional modifier key.

The User Defined Functions can be edited after pushing the <User defined functions...> button in the InstantCalc control panel. You can redefine internal functions of InstantCalc. The search algorithm starts looking for the function symbols in the user functions first and if no match occured it looks up the internal functions. The calculation will be performed with the first match. E.g., a user function in row 1 with the prolog symbol F(x) will be used in favor to a function in row 10 which gots the same symbol. User functions with high ordinal numbers can depend on those with lower ordinal numbers. The examples which come with InstantCalc can be overwritten, changed or deleted. The changes take effect immediately. You always can test new functions directly within the InstantWindow, try the <ctrl>-<cmd>-<c> combination. SimpleCalc can fetch the functions only when it starts. So if it was open during editing of the user functions, you must close and restart SimpleCalc so that it can acknowledge the new functions.

Version history

Version 1.6.1 (March 2002):

• Updated Atomic Weights of theElements according to:
  IUPAC Technical Report, Pure Appl. Chem., 73 (2001) 667-683.

Version 1.6 (December 2001):

• Minor bug fixes.
• Better handling of styled text.
• Code changes for updating user functions by utility applications like InstantXRates.

Version 1.5.1 (July 2001):

• Fixed a bug which prevented InstantCalc to create its preferences file and therefore it could not install itself on some machines.
• Fixed a bug which prevented InstantCalc and SimpleCalc to recognize certain user functions.

Version 1.5 (June 2001)

• New: User Defined Functions plus a comfortable function editor. InstantCalc 1.5 presents some useful examples which can be easily overwritten, changed or deleted.
• New: Function Keys (F1..F15) can be used as hot keys.
• New: InstantWindow now remembers contents and position also after restart.
• New: InstantWindow can be closed by switching to another open application.
• Improved: Overall behaviour and stability of the InstantWindow. The InstantWindow no more freezes or crashes neither within Eudora Light, Chooser, ScriptEditor, GraphicConverter or any Carbon-App nor on top of any Standard-Open/Save-Dialog.
• Bug fix: InstantWindow and the error message window may have crashed because of anuninitialized variable.
• Bug fix: Registration may have failed because of control characters (<enter>, <return>,<esc>, ...) in the code number.
• Bug fix: In rare situations, the new summation routine of v1.4.1 produced wrong results.
• Polished: Minor user interface glitches in SimpleCalc and the InstantCalc control panel.

Version 1.4.1 (September 2000)

• Fixed a bug in InstantCalc which undesirably activated the InstantWindow.
• Added the implicit Summation routine which is invoked with the S sign while the old explicit summation is already present but is now invoked with "sum" instead of S.
• Fixed a bug in SimpleCalc which let the result list not auto scroll to the current cell after deleting some rows. Under certain conditions, all results vanished until the next calculation.

Version 1.4 (September 2000)

• InstantCalc and SimpleCalc now support the Appearance Manager.
• Fixed a bug which let InstantCalc and SimpleCalc freeze or crash upon a missing semi-colon within the numerical methods.
• New scrollable and addressable result list in SimpleCalc.
• SimpleCalc window is now sizeable.
• Totall rework of the buggy printing routines of SimpleCalc.
• Added display of fractions.
• Movable Information and Registration windows.
• Registration in advance.

Version 1.3.1 (July 2000)

• Bugfix: InstantCalc 1.3 crashed upon performing a numerical integration.
• Bugfix: InstantCalc 1.3 crashed when moving the InstantWindow around on top of a Standard File Dialog Box.
• Improved window updating when moving around the InstantWindow. Occasionally it may still behave like a big erasor. However, this is only a cosmetical issue.
• Added the numerical differentiation method.

Version 1.3 (July 2000)

• Added the InstantWindow feature.
• Added logic for handling the additional modifier key.
• Now SimpleCalc can save and print all of its fields.

Version 1.2 (February 2000)

• Added option for fixed number of decimal digits.
• SimpleCalc honors the settings of the number of decimal digits.
• Smart adaption of old preference files.
• For better compatibility, SANE environment is backed up before and restored after each invocation.
• Rounding operator "´" applied the same algorithm as the rint function, now it applies the algorithm of the round function, giving more natural roundings (see Reference).

Version 1.1 (January 2000)

• Fix of a possible incompatibility issue. If version 1.0 did not work with one of your favorite applications, give version 1.1 a try, might be that the problem is resolved.
• "Disable Help Key" is renamed to "Modify Help Key" and now works also for MacOS 8.5 and later.
• <ctrl>-<Mouse Click> is off by default to avoid conflicts with contextual menus.
• Added Decimal/Binary conversion operators.
• Bug fix in the accompanied application SimpleCalc. SimpleCalc 1.0 might have crashed depending on the chosen printer.
• Reduced registration fee of only $10.

Version 1.0 (August 1998)

• Release version.

Suggestions, comments and error reports are welcome! Please email to:

InstantWare@t-online.de

or mail to:

Dr. Rolf Jansen
Postfach 1123
D-55272 Oppenheim
(Germany).