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HP Forum Archive 21

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Improvements for productivity for the Prime
Message #1 Posted by Stefan Dröge (Germany) on 7 Dec 2013, 6:15 p.m.

One feature that I miss very much when I compare my Prime to my TI NSpire CAS is a file system which I can use to organize my previous calculations nicely:

With the traditional way (like the Prime has it) of just having one calculation environment, it is practically impossible to find and review old calculations that belong to a different project or task. Moreover one has to be careful not to overwrite variables that were used in these calculations.

A worksheet based approach (as the NSpire series has it) separates the tasks from each other and makes it easy to review old calculations: On the NSpire I can easily find and review calculations which I made several years ago! The variables are stored separately for each "Problem" (how TI calls it) so I can use the same variable name for different tasks without overwriting old results.

So my wish/idea/vision of a useful implementation would be similar to the NSpire, but with some enhancements:

1. Introduce a document based way to organize and store different problems.

2. Several other users have already asked for a way to organize the apps. A way that would work together with the document based approach would be to associate instances of the apps to a worksheet in the document rather than using them stand alone.

3. By swiping left or right over the screen one can change between the different worksheets in an open document. Thus no screen space is needed for displaying tabs.

4. The CAS could also be seen as an App of which instances are added to a document. (Although I must say I don't find it useful to separate numeric calculations from CAS calculations)

Since big operating system and user interface changes are a little bit constrained by the hardware buttons, I had some thoughts about the button functions:

1. The Home button would take you to a view where the files are organized and maybe system wide setting can be edited.

2. The Apps button would present you with a view with a library of available apps. When a app is selected in this view an instance of the app is added to the current document.

3. The CAS button would open a view that can be used as a scratchpad-like calculation environment, which are independant of the current document. Alternatively the button could have the function to add an instance of a CAS calculation worksheet to the current document.

4. The Symb, Plot, Num, View buttons have their usual functions. The buttons just quickly change the view for this worksheet.

I hope some of the ideas will be heard by the developers. I think it would be a good step forward to move away from the simple commandline-like interface which forces one to loose old calculations with time.

(Sorry for yet another Prime thread. But to me it seems that this forum has the most active HP community and from time to time some involvement of HP employees.)

      
Re: Improvements for productivity for the Prime
Message #2 Posted by Erwin Ried on 7 Dec 2013, 8:10 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by Stefan Dröge (Germany)

I think the idea of the apps is somewhat like that, you can edit one and save it with the variables, notes, etc as a new one.

            
Re: Improvements for productivity for the Prime
Message #3 Posted by Stefan Dröge (Germany) on 8 Dec 2013, 5:11 a.m.,
in response to message #2 by Erwin Ried

Yes, but the problem is that in an App I can't save normal calculations. An app has only one purpose. It would be good to be able to combine normal calculations with one or several apps and save them together.


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