Advanced Calculator: feedback from user

[edgesince84]

A user on DDG reported that the calculator IA wasn't triggering for a problem that includes square roots.

ex: sqrt(5+exp(5+exp(5))+5)

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IA Page: http://duck.co/ia/view/symbolab Maintainer: @levaly

[levaly]

Currently implementation requires inserting the keyword "solve" or "calculate" or "compute. Here is a link for the above query https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solve+sqrt(5%2Bexp(5%2Bexp(5))%2B5)&ia=calculator

[GuiltyDolphin]

@edgesince84 @levaly These sorts of queries should be handled by the Goodie calculator - not the Spice. The Spice should be used for things the Goodie doesn't handle (such as calculus).

And yes - it triggers for duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-goodies#1927.

[harsha-main]

Some of the problems are solved through https://www.symbolab.com/ and I think they could be solved directly using the advanced calculator itself. Maybe that needs to be adjusted. example: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solve+5*exp6&ia=calculator

[GuiltyDolphin]

@busyintech These should be handled fine by the rewrite. We're able to provide higher precision and more functionality (extensibility) without needing external API calls. The Spice provides support for calculus (and other operations) which will not be supported by the Goodie for the foreseable future.

[edgesince84]

thanks guys, adding "solve" to the query works just fine. closing this out!

[harsha-main]

@edgesince84 Even with the "solve" keyword, it still does not work with some queries, such as sqrt(5+exp(5+exp(5))+5), https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solve+sqrt(5%2Bexp(5%2Bexp(5))%2B5)&t=hc&ia=calculator To improve usability, you may have to consider solving the query even without the keyword, just like a modern calculator would do.

[GuiltyDolphin]

@busyintech This seems to work fine on Beta with the regular calculator: https://beta.duckduckgo.com/?q=sqrt(5%2Bexp(5%2Bexp(5))%2B5)&ia=answer