WP43 News

This area is for discussion about these families of custom high-end Scientific Calculator applications for SwissMicros devices.
User avatar
Walter
Posts: 3070
Joined: Tue May 02, 2017 11:13 am
Location: On a mission close to DRS, Germany

Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

dlachieze wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 11:45 pm
Also one thing that bugs be on the 43S is that, when I enter in program mode, the previous menus opened in Run mode remain in the menu stack so I have to press EXIT many times before exiting the program mode, and depending on the menu displayed the up and down arrows may not do BST or SST which is a major inconvenience for me, I always have to check if there is a dashed line in the menu to see if I need to press f before an up and down arrow or as many EXIT as required by the content of the menu stack.
Clearing the menu stack and displaying a default menu when entering the program mode would ensure a more consistent user experience.
You are supposed to leave programming mode via [P/R]. [EXIT] is just a shortcut, if applicable. Its main purpose is exiting menus.

Same with [SST] and [BST]. [up] and [V] are merely shortcuts. It's all described in App. 1 of the OM, IIRC.

It's the curse of shortcuts they work under certain circumstances only. Possible cure: put the respective functions in MYMENU or assign them to another place.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
dlachieze
Posts: 613
Joined: Thu May 04, 2017 12:20 pm
Location: France

Re: 43S News

Post by dlachieze »

Understood, however every time I come back to the 43S I find annoying to be constrained in program mode by the menus previously opened in run mode.

Btw, the following sentence in the latest Owner’s Manual p307 is not aligned with the current software implementation:
Note MyMenu will show up whenever all other menus are exited, i.e. after you left all applicable submenus and pressed EXIT in the parent menu.
Pressing EXIT in parent menu will not show MyMenu if there is another menu in the menu stack.
DM42: 00425 - DM41X: β00066 - WP43: 00042
User avatar
Walter
Posts: 3070
Joined: Tue May 02, 2017 11:13 am
Location: On a mission close to DRS, Germany

Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

dlachieze wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 8:26 am
Btw, the following sentence in the latest Owner’s Manual p307 is not aligned with the current software implementation:
Note MyMenu will show up whenever all other menus are exited, i.e. after you left all applicable submenus and pressed EXIT in the parent menu.
Pressing EXIT in parent menu will not show MyMenu if there is another menu in the menu stack.
Thanks for reporting. 3 points for you!

P.S.:
dlachieze wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 8:26 am
Understood, however every time I come back to the 43S I find annoying to be constrained in program mode by the menus previously opened in run mode.
Please take a look to p. 327 of the OM. There is specified what shall happen when you press either [^] or [v] under various circumstances on the WP43S, and which condition will be checked when. 8-)
That's only software, of course. ;)
You may think about reordering this procedure to fulfill what you expect from your WP43S. :)

If and when you find a way suiting your expectations better (and not disturbing essential requirements), feel free to suggest it here. Please remember the full functionality of the WP43S must be covered also after your modifications. I sign off wishing you success! :D
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
dlachieze
Posts: 613
Joined: Thu May 04, 2017 12:20 pm
Location: France

Re: 43S News

Post by dlachieze »

Walter wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 9:22 am
You may think about reordering this procedure to fulfill what you expect from your WP43S. :)

If and when you find a way suiting your expectations better (and not disturbing essential requirements), feel free to suggest it here. Please remember the full functionality of the WP43S must be covered also after your modifications. I sign off wishing you success! :D
I will need to think about it but it seems I’m the only one annoyed by this.

Anyway, without changing the procedure p. 327 of the OM, what would best fit my needs when going to PEM would be to get rid of the menus opened in run mode as they are generally not relevant to the activity in program mode and to just display MyMenu, this way up and down arrow will allow easy navigation within the program which is what I need when writing and debugging programs, and EXIT will easily exit from program mode when needed.

Talking about procedure, in the same section of the manual, and as I reported previously, the current priority for EXIT is a bit weird: you enter the Program Mode with [f] [P/R] then you enter the AIM mode with [f] [α], so I would expect EXIT to do the reverse: first press exit AIM, second press exit program mode. But it’s not the case, pressing EXIT in this circonstance exits directly from the Program Mode while you were just editing a string in program mode. I would suggest to swap the priority between PEM and alpha mode.
DM42: 00425 - DM41X: β00066 - WP43: 00042
rprosperi
Posts: 1698
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2017 7:48 pm
Location: New York

Re: 43S News

Post by rprosperi »

dlachieze wrote:
Sat Sep 03, 2022 12:18 am
Anyway, without changing the procedure p. 327 of the OM, what would best fit my needs when going to PEM would be to get rid of the menus opened in run mode as they are generally not relevant to the activity in program mode and to just display MyMenu, this way up and down arrow will allow easy navigation within the program which is what I need when writing and debugging programs, and EXIT will easily exit from program mode when needed.

Talking about procedure, in the same section of the manual, and as I reported previously, the current priority for EXIT is a bit weird: you enter the Program Mode with [f] [P/R] then you enter the AIM mode with [f] [α], so I would expect EXIT to do the reverse: first press exit AIM, second press exit program mode. But it’s not the case, pressing EXIT in this circonstance exits directly from the Program Mode while you were just editing a string in program mode. I would suggest to swap the priority between PEM and alpha mode.
These changes suggested by Didier seem logical, and far more intuitive than rigidly retaining prior menu modes. The rigid menu structures in fact do make good sense in general, and I like this modal behavior, but I agree that upon entering PEM it's natural to release pending menu modes as a user very, very rarely would be mentally resuming where he/she was just prior.

For the latter case (entering Alpha mode from PEM) Didier's suggestion sounds more reasonable to me, but I must admit I've not used 43S in a very long time and so have no recent direct experience. Although the modes and keys are different, on the 41, 42, etc. one may enter Alpha mode while in PRGM mode and exiting Alpha of course returns one to program mode; I would never expect it to behave in the opposite way and think that would be confusing.
--bob p

DM42: β00071 & 00282, DM41X: β00071 & 00656, DM10L: 071/100
User avatar
Walter
Posts: 3070
Joined: Tue May 02, 2017 11:13 am
Location: On a mission close to DRS, Germany

Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

The functionality of EXIT is controlled by the software equivalent of p. 326 in the OM. Again, re-ordering is thinkable, so, please ... (the same rules apply as above).
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
dlachieze
Posts: 613
Joined: Thu May 04, 2017 12:20 pm
Location: France

Re: 43S News

Post by dlachieze »

Walter wrote:
Sat Sep 03, 2022 9:07 pm
The functionality of EXIT is controlled by the software equivalent of p. 326 in the OM. Again, re-ordering is thinkable, so, please ... (the same rules apply as above).
Currently the rules are:

EXIT_a.png
EXIT_a.png (94.29 KiB) Viewed 1310 times
so PEM has higher priority than alpha, which means that when you enter a string in program mode, pressing EXIT will brutally exit program mode and not simply exit the alpha mode to return to program entry.

The change I've suggested above is simple: swap PEM and alpha priority.

EXIT_b.png
EXIT_b.png (28.07 KiB) Viewed 1310 times
this way when you press EXIT while editing a string in program mode you just exit the alpha mode and return to program entry as expected.

I don't see any drawback to this proposal, but I may miss something.
DM42: 00425 - DM41X: β00066 - WP43: 00042
User avatar
Walter
Posts: 3070
Joined: Tue May 02, 2017 11:13 am
Location: On a mission close to DRS, Germany

Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

Do you know you can (and should) leave alpha input mode via ENTER usually? Nevertheless, swapping the two rows in the table may make sense since it mitigates risks for errors and doesn't harm.

EDIT: Please see p. 325 of the OM in this matter.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
dlachieze
Posts: 613
Joined: Thu May 04, 2017 12:20 pm
Location: France

Re: 43S News

Post by dlachieze »

I know I can but not that I should, anyway for consistency if you allow EXIT to exit for alpha input mode it should return to the previous mode whether it is run mode or program entry mode, which is how it works on the HP-42s.

What should I see on page 325 that I missed?
DM42: 00425 - DM41X: β00066 - WP43: 00042
User avatar
Walter
Posts: 3070
Joined: Tue May 02, 2017 11:13 am
Location: On a mission close to DRS, Germany

Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

Enter325.png
Enter325.png (18.64 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
Post Reply