Fractions and Fraction Math

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Darin Bricker

• April 04, 2018 19:42

Tape measures don't read in decimal. My staff rarely can convert them into decimals without a calculator. A lot more power could be leveraged within goCanvas if fractions could be entered and used in calculations.

I've worked around this by creating a fraction chart and using it as a reference image in a drawing field. Unfortunately, when the team member closes the drawing and tries to remember that the piece of material that he/she needs is 12.875" x 32.75", it results in a lot of torn cardboard pieces with measurements coming back to the office with the inevitable, "this goes with Mrs. Smith's Canvas doc"

In most construction, going to 16ths would be fine, but I'm sure someone out there is building a deck like a watch and would like 32nds or 64ths.

 

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  Sara Kaplow, Community Manager

  • April 04, 2018 20:03

  Hi Darin, 

  I think this is an awesome request, and a great fit for a lot of our use cases. One work-around would be to have some Reference Data acting as sort of a rudimentary calculator. It's a little clunky, but maybe easier than the image. The file would look something like this: 

  

  And then the App would be like this: 

  

  Which looks like this on mobile: 

  
  I have it set to read-only, so they're just looking at what the number is. Kind of weird work-around, but maybe a little more helpful? 

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  Darin Bricker

  • April 04, 2018 20:17

  That is an interesting work around. Ostensibly, I could create a spreadsheet that basically counts from 0 - 144 (144" is the longest stock length of any of our material), by 16th, ie - 1/16, 1/8, ... 143-15/16 and it would convert the number to the appropriate decimal so I could use that field for the calculations. That is much better than the picture for now.

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  Eduardo Hernandez

  • April 05, 2018 13:28

  well.... you could always add a calculator to your app

  Just add 2 Number fields (Remember to add a minimum of 1 in the denominator to avoid a div/0)

  

  and a calculation Field 

  

  ,

  

  its should works on any situation.

   

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  Darin Bricker

  • April 05, 2018 16:22

  That would work as well, but adds a lot of calculation fields to a nested loop screen or requires scrolling back and forth, and also assumes that the 8th grade education many of the construction workers in our area received, both covered and made stick the definitions of numerator and denominator. These are people that are great with critical thinking, problem solving, mechanical ability and, most of the time, hand-eye coordination, but there are limitations that exist. I just don't think I could bring myself to title the fields "The top number of the fraction" and "The bottom number of the fraction", but another interesting way to get past the problem until a permanent fix is achieved.

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  Sara Kaplow, Community Manager

  • April 05, 2018 18:27

  Eduardo with another great recommendation! I hadn't even thought about it that way, but will definitely share this around since this is something that comes up from time to time. 

  Darin, glad to hear that it sounds like this might work for you for the time being. Thanks for posting such a great question/request!

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