Feature: typing the letter c clears the display

[alexyorke]

Problem Statement

Typing the letter c should invoke calculator's clear function (denoted by the c on the interface.) This would allow more keyboard-only functionality, as pressing delete key on the keyboard activates the delete key on the calculator.

Evidence or User Insights

macOS's calculator clears when the user presses C since I believe Tiger. macOS has a fairly large userbase as well.

Proposal

This feature will help users stay on the keyboard, and won't have to hold delete to clear the display. This is useful for many short calculations.

Goals

User can clear the display without having to use the mouse.

Non-Goals

This could help with accessibility if the user cannot use the mouse, as they can clear the display by pressing c instead.

Low-Fidelity Concept

[MicrosoftIssueBot]

This is your friendly Microsoft Issue Bot. I've seen this issue come in and have gone to tell a human about it.

[janisozaur]

How do you enter c then?

[joshkoon]

Thanks for the suggestion, Decagon! The Clear key is currently mapped to the Escape key on the keyboard (with CE and backspace mapping to Delete and Backspace on the keyboard, respectively). Switching this mapping to use the C key, instead, would cause conflicts in Programmer mode, where C is a valid digit in hexadecimal.

[HowardWolosky]

What I do see as the issue here is that there isn't an obvious way to discover that ESC maps to C. That keymapping doesn't show up when you press ALT, and I'm not aware of a UWP-standard way to advertise this type of keymapping.

[alexyorke]

I'm thinking all capitals could be rejected other than the letter C, which would clear. However, this might be a very sub-optimal solution, as it would force all hex characters to be entered in as lowercase.

[joshkoon]

What I do see as the issue here is that there isn't an obvious way to discover that ESC maps to C. That keymapping doesn't show up when you press ALT, and I'm not aware of a UWP-standard way to advertise this type of keymapping.

There is not a standard UWP way of advertising this. Issue 157 seems to cover this problem and proposes one possible solution in the form of having a viewable list of available shortcuts, though there are other approaches that could be taken, as well.

[MovGP0]

using the key C seems like a bad idea, since users might want to copy some value using Ctrl+C and don't press the Ctrl key properly.

[tim-weis]

C is already assigned, e.g. when in programmer mode, set to HEX. I don't know what Mac OS X' Calculator does, when pressing the C key in programmer mode, but there are really only two options: Doing the right thing and being inconsistent with other modes, or doing the wrong thing. Neither choice is attractive enough to follow.

[ghost]

This pitch looks like it has everything it needs for review. In the meantime, we'll keep this idea open for discussion so the community has the chance to provide feedback. Check out our New Feedback Process for more info on the user-centered process we follow for new feature development.

[ghost]

Thanks again for submitting your idea! However, after reviewing this pitch more closely, we do not believe it is a great fit for the product at this time. Thank you for your contribution to Calculator!

[grochocki]

"Esc" is already mapped to clear input. I believe the implementation for #519 might lead to free-form input, which would allow for natural input of expressions (where "c" might be the start of "cos" and not mapped to an individual key at all), and there are also pitches tracking improved input entry (#519) and parsing (#526), which should help out here too. Finally, we are looking to improve support documentation (including keyboard shortcuts) via #157.