As Dorico reformat to fractions, could the field be made wider?
It is hard to read.
(I can hover to the see decimal, but wider would be better to simply read the value.)
2 Likes
Not only space, before you point out I didnāt even know we can hover and see the decimal numbers. Maybe thereās a way that I donāt know to switch? If no, this is one of a few things I donāt really understand, why Dorico chooses to handle small numbers exclusively this way. It seems much easier to program and more intuitive to read the decimal numbers rather than figuring out whether 17/50 is larger or smaller than 33/80. I know itās elementary school math but still, unnecessary. Maybe fraction means more for some cultures?
1 Like
I agree. I would prefer a decimal format like 1.75 rather than 1 3/4 etc.
I think I remember reading in the pre-release blog that Dorico does actually do some of its calculations in terms of ratios, rather than floating point decimals.
Possibly because fractions of a space are entirely relative? (Iām guessing.)
Ratios are more precise: 2/3 for example rather than .6666666666 etc. I definitely find it easier to type decimal numbers though. I imagine this is hard-wired into the program all the way down to the variable types, and so would be almost impossible to change at this point.
You can type decimal values into these controls, but Dorico will convert them to and store them as fractions, and when you confirm your input, the value will then display as a fraction once more.
1 Like
Could the fields be made wider to support full display of fractions for ālargerā values?
What string or number to display in the box isnāt āhard-wiredā and the format can be translated easily, thatās a programming 101 level exercise and in fact the box already takes decimal numbers with the mechanism needed in place. It has nothing to do with how Dorico functions internally. Practically speaking 0.66 is good enough and adding more numbers after the decimal wonāt make noticeable difference. Iād love to see an accessibility option to display decimal numbers exclusively in the UI, especially for people from countries that are not looking at āthree quarters of a mileā every day but fluent with understanding ā0.75 km,ā and as a result, anything in decimal numeral system.