Recognize 3,360/2 as math

[chriscalo]

I often copy numbers and paste them into Alfred to do quick math on them like dividing by 2. Numbers are often formatted with commas, and this causes Alfred to not understand them as numbers. Then I have to manually remove the comma, while this seems like some that should just work. It would be great if Alfred could recognize expressions like the following as math:

 

3,360/2

 

[Vero]

@chriscalo Take a look at the Calculator preferences and set your preferred thousand separators so that thousands are set to commas:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/features/calculator/

 

Cheers,
Vero 

[chriscalo]

Oh, my goodness, thank you so much for pointing that out 🙏

 

(can I change my feature request to just making this setting the default? why would you ever not want this?) 

[deanishe]

26 minutes ago, chriscalo said:

just making this setting the default?

 

AFAIK, the default is to use whatever you've set in System Preferences.

[chriscalo]

Not sure what System Preferences you're referring to. What I mean is this checkbox should be checked by default:

[deanishe]

46 minutes ago, chriscalo said:

Not sure what System Preferences you're referring to.

 

System Preferences, not Alfred Preferences.

If you don't know "System Preferences", then you presumably don't have your macOS set to English, so your thousands delimiter isn't set to comma.

[chriscalo]

I'm aware of what System Preferences is. My point was that you didn’t mention which preference you were referring to your reply. Thanks for clarifying.

 

It turns out the preference you mentioned is not the source of the issue. Mine is set exactly as in your screenshot.

 

When Alfred's "Ignore thousands grouping separator" is unchecked, Alfred fails to correctly interpret 1,234 * 2.

When it is checked, everything works as expected.

 

Thus, my feature request is to default Ignore thousands grouping separator to on for all users.

 

I now know how to fix this for myself, so my issue is solved. I'm humbly suggesting that checking the Ignore thousands grouping separator box by default would be a usability improvement for all other users trying to paste numbers into Alfred to do math on them.

 

Cheers,

Chris

[deanishe]

On 10/11/2019 at 5:14 PM, chriscalo said:

My point was that you didn’t mention which preference you were referring to your reply.

 

Right, sorry. I got confused and was holding tightly onto the wrong end of the stick there…

[Andrew]

On 10/9/2019 at 10:02 PM, chriscalo said:

can I change my feature request to just making this setting the default?

 

This isn't enabled by default as it adds confusion between whether comma or dot is being used as the decimal separator under certain circumstances.