[Announce] Gonvert
 

Gonvert is a unit converter with a massive collection of units.

See
Website
Package Page
"Help me Hildonize Gonvert" for the previous discussion

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

Thanks epage!

This is super light-weight, zippy, and filled with awesomeness! :D

Any possibility of adding apothecary equivalents as well?

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&gl=us

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

See https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Gonvert ;)

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

God, you guys read my mind or what... I was just looking for apps I need and couldn't find a unit converter, so looked up OSS projects and Gonvert was there.. was hoping to compile it to Fremantle when I get the N900. Guess you beat me to it. Awesome :)

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

Thanks chief!

I placed a request along with a better web page for reference. :)

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I just promoted a new 0.9.0-6 to Fremantle Extras-Testing, so people with n900's, please go back and vote.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I want to thank everyone who tested to help get Gonvert into Maemo 5 extras. I just promoted it.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

no no.. thank u for the work :)

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

Can I ask why there are no EU-shoe sizes?

Do you want translations to other languages (of the app)?

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

Feel free to file a bug preferrably with a link to a resource on shoe units.

I could look into accepting translations of the UI but as the unit list is currently implemented, it at least triples the startup time if I make it translatable.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

First of all let me say big thumbs up to this app. I'm an engineer and use it at least once a day.

However is it possible at all to add kinetic(?) scrolling like other lists? It would make navigation a lot quicker.

Cheers.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

Wow, I'm glad to hear.

I have a bug filed on it. I've looked into it before but something weird is going on that I haven't figured out
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6231

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I think we'll better leave it all English then!

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I just thought I'd give a small update. I've chosen porting Gonvert to QT as my way of learning QT.

I've so far got the category selection, unit selection and conversion, search, and sorting done. I still need to save the users last selected unit, some keyboard shortcuts, and always keeping the unit entry focused. I also am looking at implementing recent and favorites support. I've still not "hildonized it" (whatever that means for QT) and it crashes on close.

I plan to still have the GTK version available for Maemo 4.1 and at some point I will probably switch Maemo 5 over to QT.

If you have any suggestions for the process of switching over the UI, let me know.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

The two main things I'd like improved in the Gonvert UI:

• Be able to select "from" and "to" units, and then enter new values for conversion without having to go hunt for them again. Right now, for example, if I want to convert length/width/depth measurements from imperial to metric, I need to scroll to the "from" unit, enter the number, scroll to the "to" unit to see the result, scroll back to the "from" unit to enter the next number, etc.
• Be able to mark certain units as "favorites", and then have a "favorites-only" view mode. The very comprehensive list of units is a nice feature of Gonvert, but most of the time they just get in the way; it would be nice to have the option of seeing all the obscure units only when actively looking for them.

NIT Units Converter for Diablo actually looks a bit closer to what I want, but it hasn't been released for Fremantle yet and is still missing some important units (like the entire "temperature" category). I'm hoping that one of these two apps can implement the features I want from the other one sometime soon.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

You shouldn't have to scroll back to the from field unless it is somehow becoming unselected. I'd be curious why it is unselected.

Things I'm doing for this:

• Revamped search to be a Quick Jump window which shows all units available as the user types (Implemented)
• A Recent window to show your history of selected units to convert (Implemented)
• Favorites to filter out what units and categories you want to see and don't want to see with a toggle to switch between favorites and all (To be implemented)

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

The problem with the from field being unselected is an interaction with the kinetic scrolling. On Diablo there's a scrollbar, so you can scroll the display without tapping on any rows of the table. On Fremantle, you have to swipe the table itself to scroll it, and in Gonvert the initial touch of that swipe is counting as a selection of that unit's row. The result is that I haven't been able to scroll to the "to" unit without selecting several other units in the process. Is there some workaround for this that I'm missing? I know it's possible to swipe the table in Qt applications without selecting the tapped row (I do that in PortaBase), I think there should be a way to do it in GTK+ also.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I'm watching for a select signal rather than an activate so the user doesn't have to double tap. My choices in GTK are to switch to activate or experiment with a hack to block the signal if the user has moved between a press and a release if I'm not blocked from those signals).

So I guess the nice thing is this issue will go away with my QT port. I believe I'm observing on the clicked signal or something like that.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

If you're going to put the time and effort into porting this, and adding new features as well, then perhaps you might consider entering into the ongoing coding competition.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I never really thought of it. I don't normally consider my stuff flashy enough for a competition and I didn't consider a rewrite of the UI to be interesting for it (though that basically means its a rewrite of everything but the unit list).

Do people think this is something that should be entered?

I've also got another app in development that I'm donating to a non-profit. I should ask them if I can enter it...

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I don't think it has to be flashy for the competition, as far as I know it doesn't even have to be particularly useful. I think the idea is to stimulate more interest amongst the community in developing new apps, so the more entries it gets the better I think.

Plus, as you say it's a complete rewrite of what is, in my opinion, a very useful application.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

my only request is when you enter the number can you make the text box to auto select number function, pleeeasee

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I assume you are talking about the Fn mode being enabled by default?

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

yes thats it

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I haven't before looked into how this is done before. That'll be interesting

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

well i love gonvert but thats the only quirk i have with the app i usually forget you have to press fn to write the numbers as the gui of the phone usually knows where you have to enter a number

for the rest is amazing :D

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I thought I'd report that I'm (beyond) feature parity with no known bugs. I just have favorites support and on-device testing left.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I've just uploaded Gonvert 1.0.0 to the autobuilder. Changes include

• Switched from GTK to QT in preparation for Meego, all previous features still present
• Except removed the current form of search
• Added a "Recent" window
• Added a "Quick Jump" window (to replace old form of search)
• Added favorites to limit the numer of categories and units shown
• Should be auto-rotatable (might not be working for some reason)
• Should auto-enable Fn on Maemo 5

Once Gonvert is in Diablo/Fremantle extras-devel I'll spot check and promote to extras-testing

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

del

Mixed up python with qt.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

Any feedback on the new interface for Gonvert (1.0.0 or 1.1.0)?

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

A couple of quick observations:

- it doesn't seem to be auto-enabling Fn for number fields

- the numbers in the selected unit remain at zero after a conversion, which is a bit confusing.

For example, I'll select Length, then Meter, and enter a value of 1.0 at the top. The rest of the fields will become populated with the conversion results, but 'meter' in the list will remain at 0.0. A small quibble, but it's a bit odd as you scroll through the list.

- it seems to lag quite a bit more than I remember

Otherwise it's a staggeringly useful conversion app -- thanks very much for all the work you've done :)

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

Out of curiousity, was this 1.0 or 1.1? I'm curious what people think of the new view I added (for lack of a better name, Condensed View)

Yeah. I told QT that I prefer numbers which I assume would enable Fn. I'm unsure on this one.

Yeah, I didn't entirely think through a difference between the GTK version and the QT version. I've fixed this locally and will be in the next verson

Old Gonvert lagged a bit, new one does a bit more. Favorites being enabled makes it even worse. Condensed view does not have any noticeable lag though.

Something I've noticed is editing favorites is a bit finicky on Maemo 5. Sadly I don't have control over it. I might try implementing the favorites editor in a different fashion to see if that helps.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I'm fairly certain it was 1.1 because Gonvert has updated a couple of times recently on my phone.

I'll try to take a look at condensed view a little later on and give some feedback on that -- none of the other points I mentioned stop this from being incredibly useful, but I think I did have favourites enabled, so I'll try playing with that to see if it speeds things up for me.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

Ok.. turns out I was using 1.0.1-2 in my previous post, so I've upgraded to 1.1 now and played around with it a bit.

Some observations:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4066/...969d07da_b.jpg

The non-condensed (expanded?) view doesn't seem to be displaying the unit list correctly anymore -- as you can see, items are being clipped by the calculated values to the right of them. I've tried switching themes and rebooting, and neither seems to make a difference, so I'm guessing this is something to do with the app


As far as condensed view goes, it's quite cool in principle, but in practice I'm seeing a couple of problems:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/...048dfaf4_b.jpg

The first thing I notice can be seen in the screenshot above -- in situations where certain units can have multiple types (Point Postscript/Dido/Pica in this example), there is no indication given as to which version is being converted.

The other issue I noticed is that when scrolling through the lists, once a selection has been made, the list will always 'jump' to that selection each time you begin scrolling again, making it effectively impossible to simply scroll up/down in the list in order to find a new category/unit..

Instead one must make an arbitrary selection in order to give the list a new position to 'jump' to, scrolling a bit, making another arbitrary selection, scrolling, etc. until you eventually reach the item you're looking for.. I hope that makes sense.. it's a bit tricky to describe.


It's got potential, and I suppose some might find it more intuitive, but I actually much prefer the directness of the original view

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I added the clipping because in some cases converted numbers were going off the screen. Sadly for some reason it wasn't doing the "..." on it, unsure why. I should probably give it some more space

I guess I could display the full name and let it show the ellipsis all it wants. I originally only showed units for space but not everything has a unit. So I fell back to if not unit then name.

I found this issue the other night and know the exact cause. I'm just trying to decide the cleanest approach to fixing it.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I see.. I hadn't ever seen that happen, but you're bound to have spent a lot more time with the app than me, so I'll take your word for it ;)

In at least one iteration, the screen was capable of being dragged left/right as well as up/down, which I thought was a perfect way of seeing large numbers which were going off screen..

TBH, my favourite version of this app was the one where you'd simply select the unit you want to start with, enter an amount in a field immediately next to it and see the rest of the conversions populate. It was simple, direct, and totally intuitive once you'd found the unit you want.

Just my opinion, of course.


I can definitely see the dilemma there. Still.. they are different units, so there should be some indication as to the particular standard they're representing..

Two ideas come to mind at the moment:

1 - display the full name of the selected units at the top of the screen.. possibly in a line above the results
(ie: "From: Unit A | To: Unit B").

2 - move to two columns rather than three.. the user chooses a Category first, and then gets to a screen with the "TO" and "FROM" columns.. obviously that's a step back to something resembling the 'standard' mode, but I've never needed to access more than a single Category per use of Gonvert, so maybe it doesn't matter much..

Again, this is me speaking as a fan of the old, so feel free to completely ignore my input here ;)


It took me a while to figure out WTH was going on -- glad to know you're working on it!

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

To me, having to drag the main screen around is for an app like this is a sign of lack of polish. It gets cumbersome to always be playing with it. I will try to look into cleaning up this issue though.

Hopefully we'll see some improvements to the traditional view to make it smoother to work with.

I implemented the new view in part due to requests from people for and in part because I knew it wouldn't have the performance issues of the traditional view. Even the old gonvert had a bit of lag at times in the traditional view. I'll look at showing full names but I think I'll leave categories per the original requests.

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

I'm uploading 1.1.1 to the auto builder

• Switching Condensed View's output to be editable also
• Fixed scrolling on Maemo
• On the traditional view, fixed an issue setting a value on the unit being converted
• Increased the name column size in the traditional view
• Switching Favorites to checkboxes from selection
• Attempting some optimizations

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

If you ever plan on doing another release, do you think you could add apothecary equivalents?

http://www.tostepharmd.net/pharm/cli...asurement.html

Thanks Ed! :)

Re: [Announce] Gonvert
 

It should have fluid drams, drams, and scruples already under the volume (liquid) and mass categories.