bkmontgomery

Hi All,
 
I'm new here, and I've just created my first workflow: Percent Change. For some reason, I can never do this in my head, and I'm tiring of looking up the formula.
 
This workflow lets you calculate the percent of change between two values, using the % symbol:
% <value1> <value2> So, something like % 3 6 would give you a result of 100. The result is displayed in Large text and copied to the clipboard.  You can find it, here:
 
http://www.packal.org/workflow/percent-change
 
I'd love any feedback.
 
 

Hi @adam_wagner, Thanks for your work on this! I've finally gotten around to pulling in your changes (which you can see on github), and adding the new version on packal!
 
Happy Holidays! :)

Hi All, I've finally gotten a chance to convert this workflow over to a Script filter (Alfred-workflow is awesome, by the way), so you should now see results instantly, instead of having to wait for the large output.  I've also removed the copy to clipboard, since I never seemed to use that anyway.
 
You can get version 1.3.0 from http://www.packal.org/workflow/percent-change, or from https://github.com/bradmontgomery/alfred-percent-change
 
Let me know what you think.

Hi sudopeople,
 
This is great feedback!  I can see where the phrasing is confusing.  I won't get  a chance to work on this for about a week, but once I do, I'll come back to it and push out a new release incorporating your suggestions.
 
Thank you!

Great idea! I usually just struggle in the calculator until I get the answer that looks correct. I have a few thoughts on how it would be more useful...for me at least.
 
 
A. The wording seems to be incorrect. "3 percent of 100" is indeed 3, but if you type "3 of 10" (which, in your wording would be "3 percent of 10") you get 30, presumably 30% - which is wrong of course. I suggest you change the example wording to "What percentage of 100 is 3:" or to keep the order and English correct, "3 is what percentage of 100:" and the subtext with the answer could be renamed to "Percentage of" to differentiate it from...
 
B. I expected, and would find useful, the ability to do exactly what your example text suggests: find out what 3% of 100 is. Or to make the examples more clear, what 3% of 10 is: 0.3. A command could be as simple as "3% of 10" - note the % symbol after the 3. The subtext of this would more accurately be "Percent of".
 
Because of some of the confusion, I think it would be a good idea to add a % symbol to the answer where applicable. Since you're not using copy to clipboard anymore, I don't imagine that would be a burden on anyone. And with all the new features being added and proposed, I think it would add a lot of clarity when trying different formulas.
 


 
 
 
 
New feature:

 
 
 
 
I also made a new icon so it's visible in the black:

 
Alone here:

 
FYI, if you delete the 3rd argument on line 92 of percent.py, it will use the % icon above for completed calculations. (I'm not sure if you intended to use the info icon. I prefer the percent symbol the whole time, but don't really care.)

Updated to version 1.2.0, which includes new calculations.
 
http://www.packal.org/workflow/percent-change
 
1. Percent Change (increase/decrease): `% 3 6` -> 100% 2. Percent of; What is 3 percent of 100: `% 3 of 100` -> 3% 3. Percent Difference; What is 2 percent from 100: `% 100 - 2%` 4. Percent Increase; What is 100 + 2%: `% 100 + 2%`   Next version will be converted to a Script Filter.

Updated to version 1.2.0, which includes new calculations.
 
http://www.packal.org/workflow/percent-change
 
1. Percent Change (increase/decrease): `% 3 6` -> 100% 2. Percent of; What is 3 percent of 100: `% 3 of 100` -> 3% 3. Percent Difference; What is 2 percent from 100: `% 100 - 2%` 4. Percent Increase; What is 100 + 2%: `% 100 + 2%`   Next version will be converted to a Script Filter.

To get live output, you need to implement the workflow as a Script Filter.
Seeing as you're using Python, you might find my Python library useful (no need to mess around with XML yourself).

Thanks for the feedback!  I admit, that I don't like the large output either. I've found that I tend to do 2 or 3 calculations in a row, so I'll try to figure out how to get live output.
 
As for other calculations, I can think these might be useful:
What percent of X is Y What is X percent from Y I'd be happy to incorporate any others!