Convertall - News

Version 0.8.0

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# What is ConvertAll?

Why write another unit converter? There are plenty of them out there. Well, I couldn't find one that worked quite the way I wanted.

With ConvertAll, you can combine the units any way you want. If you want to convert from inches per decade, that's fine. Or from meter-pounds. Or from cubic nautical miles. The units don't have to make sense to anyone else.

In addition to this installed version, there is also an online version, written in JavaScript. See convertall-js.bellz.org to try it out.

A source code repository is available at GitHub.

# News

## March 22, 2020 - Release 0.8.0

New Features:
- Added a separate base conversion dialog to convert between different base numbering systems. It converts from/to decimal, hexadecimal, octal and binary bases.
- Added a separate fraction conversion dialog to convert from decimal to fractional numbers. It provides a list of fractions in order of increasing accuracy.
- A GUI font selection button was added to the Options dialog. This allows larger fonts to be used for high resolution displays.
- A new GUI color setting dialog was added to the Options dialog. It allows a dark theme to be selected, or colors can be selected individually.

Updates:
- Added the Beaufort wind speed unit.
- R-value thermal resistance units were added.
- The diopter/dioptre optical power unit was added.
- Added the rydberg and hartree energy units.
- Added the Planck constant as a unit.
- Slightly adjusted the conversion value of the atomic mass unit (amu) and added the dalton synonym.
- Slightly adjusted the conversion value of the astronomical (au) and the parsec units.
- Add Swedish translation (thanks to Ake Engelbrektson).
- Add Catalan translation (thanks to Pere Orga).
- Update the libraries used to build the Windows binaries to Python 3.8 and Qt/PyQt 5.14.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a problem with the ConvertAll window being positioned off the screen after major changes in resolution when using external monitors.
- Clarified the labels for several power-of-10 data units (KB, MB, etc.) to show as "SI standard" rather than "IEC standard".

## July 4, 2018 - Release 0.7.5

Updates:
- Updated the Russian GUI and unit translation (thanks to Ivan / vantu5z).

Bug Fixes:
- Fix the tab sequence to allow tabbing between the unit edit boxes and the numeric edit boxes.

## April 4, 2018 - Release 0.7.4

New Features:
- Added a desktop file to the Linux version to provide menu entries.
- Added an option to disable saving the window position and size at startup.

Updates:
- Added US drill bit gauge sizes as a non-linear unit.
- Added gigabit and terabit data units.
- Adjusted the liter per 100 km fuel economy unit definition in the German translation to match the English version.

## October 15, 2017 - Release 0.7.3

Updates:
- Added the boiler horsepower unit.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a crash if a zero value is entered when the engineering notation option is enabled.
- Fixed an initialization issue that caused problems with some versions of Python.

## February 20, 2017 - Release 0.7.2

Bug Fixes:
- Fix a crash due to an overflow error whem typing part of an exponent in the denominator of the second unit.
- Avoid flipping the preceeding operator between multiplication and division as a unit exponent of 0.5 is typed.

## February 4, 2017 - Release 0.7.1 (Linux only)

Bug Fixes:
- Replaced outdated dependency checks in the Linux installer - it now runs checks for Qt5 libraries.
- Fixed a timing issue in the Linux installer so that byte-compiled files do not have old timestamps.

## January 8, 2017 - JavaScript Version - Release 0.1.1

Announcing a new online version of ConvertAll that is written in JavaScript. See http://convertall.bellz.org/js/ to try it out. It will be developed in parallel with the regular PyQt version.

## January 8, 2017 - Release 0.7.0

New Features:
- Dual unit lists have been replaced with a single list that works with the active unit line editor.
- As a unit is typed, the listing of units is reduced to only include units that match the typed words.
- The unit list can be sorted by clicking on the column headings.
- The unit list can be filtered to only show units of a certain type.
- Simple unit exponents (positive 2 and 3) can be typed with just the number (leaving out the "^" character).
- Now permits decimals to be entered for unit exponents, supporting roots of units.
- ConvertAll has been ported from the Qt4 to the Qt5 library.

Updates:
- Since the main unit list can now be searched, sorted and filtered, the Unit Finder Dialog has been removed.
- Added the British Std Wire Gauge non-linear unit.
- Added the ton imnperial unit.
- Added the cable nautical unit.
- Added the MBH (1000 Btu/hr) unit.
- Added Cape foot, square perch and rood units.

Bug Fixes:
- Corrected some unit definitions in the French translation, including avogadro's number, lambert, poise and the gravitational constant.

## September 10, 2015 - Release 0.6.1

New Features:
- Added an option to output results in engineering notation (a version of scientific notation with exponents divisible by three).
- A Russian translation was added. Thanks to vantu5z for translating.

Updates:
- Added the dram mass unit.
- Added the fluid dram and the minim volume units, in both US and Imperial versions.
- Added the smoot length unit.
- Added "dm" as an abbreviation for the decimeter length unit.
- Added "avoirdupois" to the comment column for applicable mass and weight units.
- Added "fresh water" to the comment column for applicable depth-based pressure units.
- The German translation was updated. Thanks to Thomas Helmke for translating.
- Added some MSVC runtime DLL files to the Windows installers to avoid problems on PCs that do not already have them.
- Clarified some dependency checker error messages in the Linux installer.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed an error in the unit data formula for the AWG area unit.
- Changed the value of the caliber unit to be equivalent to inches (typical written usage), not hundredths of an inch (typical verbal usage).

## February 1, 2014 - Release 0.6.0

New Features:
- ConvertAll has been ported from Python 2 to Python 3. This porting includes some code cleanup.
- Added an option to automatically load the last used units at startup.
- Added an introductory tip dialog box that explains combined units. There is also an option to hide this dialog.
- There is an additional Windows installer for users without administrator rights and for portable installations.
- Added a Windows installer option to add a config file to the program's directory for portable installations. If that file is present, no config files will be written to users' directories.

Updates:
- The Windows binaries are built using more recent Python, Qt and PyQt libraries.
- The user interface and unit data language translations are now included in the main installation files.
- Added the long ton unit (Imperial version of the ton).
- Added the kilopond unit as a synonym of kilogram-force.
- Added the micron of Hg pressure unit.
- Added the lunar distance (LD) astronomical distance unit.
- Added the rack unit (height of an electrical rack).
- Added the versta Russian length unit.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed the operation of the "Clear" button in the Unit Finder dialog.
- Fixed a problem with the definition of the BTU unit in the French translation.

## November 2, 2011 - Release 0.5.2

Updates:
- Added the microliter volume unit.
- Added the galileo acceleration unit.
- Added the stremma land area unit.

Bug Fixes:
- Changed the method of identifying a "unitless" portion of a unit to avoid falsely reporting incompatibility between some units when using language translations.

## April 12, 2011 - Translation Update 0.5.1b

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed inconsistencies in all three unit data translations (French, German and Spanish) that caused some unit conversions to fail.

## March 31, 2011 - Release 0.5.1

Updates:
- Added the link length unit.
- Added US survey variations of the mile and chain length units.
- Added the centigray radiation dose unit.
- Use DOS newline characters in the Windows version of the unit data file for easier editing by users.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed incorrect definition of the rad radiation dose unit (it was off by a factor of 10).

## May 2, 2010 - Translation Update 0.5.0b

Updates:
- Added a Spanish translation to the 0.5.0b version of the translations. The French and German translations remain unchanged.

## April 23, 2010 - Release 0.5.0

New Features:
- Multiplication and division operators now have the same precedence. In previous versions of ConvertAll, a series of units after a division symbol were assumed to be in the denominator. Now, a division operator only affects the unit (or the unit group in parenthesis) immediately after the operator.
- Parenthesis are now supported to group units in the denominator of a combined unit. For example, ""m / sec / kg" can also be entered as "m / (sec * kg)".
- "Recent Unit" buttons have been added that open a menu of recently used units and unit combinations. A unit selected from the menu will replace the current unit combination. There is also a new option dialog entry that controls the maximum length of this menu.

Updates:
- Added the tonne force metric force unit.
- Added hundredweight long and hundredweight short mass units.
- Added an American Wire Gauge (AWG) area unit in addition to the existing AWG diameter unit.
- Added the tonne oil equivalent and the tonne coal equivalent energy units.
- Added the ton refrigeration power unit.
- Added the darcy and millidarcy permeability units.
- French and German translations have been added for the user interface and the unit data. To use them, download and install the "convertall-i18n..." file for your platform (in addition to installing the standard ConvertAll package).

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed problems with running in the command line mode from Linux consoles without X11 present.

## September 24, 2009 - Release 0.4.3

New Features:
- Prepared ConvertAll for translation efforts by properly handling Unicode characters in unit data and by marking internal program strings for translation. Volunteers for translating ConvertAll into other languages are welcome.

Updates:
- Added solar mass and pennyweight mass units.
- Added therm and thermie energy units.
- Added gauss and maxwell magnetic units.
- Added the US survey foot length unit.
- Added the mpg imp mileage unit.
- Changed the value of the point unit from the old American point to the more modern desktop publishing point.

Bug Fixes:
- A critical QString conversion bug that caused ConvertAll to not run with the latest version of PyQt (4.5.4) was fixed.
- Command line quiet mode was fixed to avoid an interactive prompt when bad unit data is entered.

## May 28, 2008 - Release 0.4.2

Updates:
- Added the "liter per 100 km" unit for fuel consumption.

Bug Fixes:
- Changed the "mach" unit from 331.46 m/s to 340.29 m/s. It is now correct for STP conditions (15 degrees C). The previous value was for 0 degrees C.
- Fixed a bug that could hide messages about errors in a manually edited unit data file.

## January 22, 2008- Release 0.4.1

New Features:
- An optional command line mode was added to do conversions without the graphical interface. Enter the command ("convertall"), the number, the from unit and the to unit (separated by spaces) to do the conversion. For a more detailed list of options, enter "convertall -h" on the command line.

Updates:
- The icon used for ConvertAll has been updated. Thanks to Ricardo Berlasso for the new artwork.
- Alternate units have been added for kilobyte, megabyte, etc., marked "IEC std". These convert using powers of 10, rather than powers of 2.
- Troy pounds and troy ounces have been added.
- Gigapascal, hectopascal and megabar have been added.
- Hogshead units for wine and beer have been added.
- The Swedish mil unit of distance has been added.
- The Thai rai and ngaan units of land area have been added.

## October 5, 2006 - Release 0.4.0

New Features:
- ConvertAll was ported to the Qt4 library. This involved a significant rewrite of the code. The previous versions used Qt3.x on Linux and Qt2.3 on Windows. Benefits include updated widgets and removal of the non-commercial license exception in Windows.

Updates:
- On Windows, the ConvertAll.ini file has been moved from the installation directory to a location under the "Documents and Settings" folder. This avoids problems on multi-user systems and for users with limited access rights.

## October 5, 2006 - Release 0.3.2

Updates:
- Added Imperial (UK) gallons, quarts, pints and fluid ounces.
- Added gigagram and teragram units.
- Added the pound-mole unit and clarified that the existing mole is a gram-mole.

## February 14, 2005 - Release 0.3.1

Updates:
- Added the decare unit for land area.
- The Linux installer has been updated to be more robust and give more install directory options.

Bug Fixes:
- The barn unit, used in particle physics, was corrected. It had been incorrectly listed as a length unit instead of an area unit.

## March 11, 2004 - Release 0.3.0

New Features:
- A unit finder window was added to allow the unit list to be filtered and searched.
- The size and position of the main and finder windows are now saved at exit.
- A new option allows the operator text entry buttons (x, /, ^2, ^3 and Clear Unit) to be hidden.
- An install program has been added for windows.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed Linux install script problems with certain versions of Python.

## November 18, 2003 - Release 0.2.4

Updates:
- Keyboard shortcuts and tab-focus order for the main dialog have been improved.
- An install script was added for Linux and Unix systems.
- The windows build now uses Python version 2.3 and PyQt version 3.8.

## March 24, 2003 - Release 0.2.3

Updates:
- When an expression using division is entered for the number to be converted, floating point division is now used even if the entries are integers (Python 2.2 or greater only).
- Mouse wheels are now supported in the unit lists.
- Icon files are now provided with the distribution files.

## May 28, 2002 - Release 0.2.2a

Bug Fixes:
- A fix of the Windows binary only. Fixes major problems by upgrading the library version to PyQt 3.2.4.

## May 16, 2002 - Release 0.2.2

Updates:
- ConvertAll has been ported to Qt 3. It now works with both Qt 2.x and 3.x using the same source code.
- The help/readme file has been rewritten and now includes section links.
- The binaries for windows have been updated to Python 2.2 and PyQt 3.2 (but are still using Qt 2.3 Non-commercial).

## March 19, 2002 - Website Update

This website now looks a little better. Hopefully, it's more user-friendly, too.

Stay tuned - I'll soon be porting these programs to use PyQt with Qt 3.0.

## September 17, 2001 - Release 0.2.1

Bug Fixes:
- Some window captions and icons were corrected.
- A window maximizing bug was fixed.

## August 20, 2001 - Release 0.2.0

New Features:
- A major rewrite was done of the conversion engine.
- A new data file format makes it easier to add and verify units.
- The unit name and abbreviation are now listed separately for better sorting and searching.
- Entering of units has been improved by changing operator precedence, by ignoring spaces and plurals, and by changing the partial selection list highlight.
- An expression can now be used for the number to be converted.

Updates:
- Many additional units were added to the database.
- For MS Windows users, the binary files were upgraded to PyQt Version 2.5.

## August 10, 2001 - Release 0.1.1

New Features:
- Added color controls to the options dialog.

Updates:
- The convertall.ini file on windows was moved to the program directory.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed problems with using the same unit twice in a combined unit.
- Fixed an occasional shutdown when auto-completing.
- Fixed a problem with the updating of the unit label.

## July 28, 2001 - Release 0.1.0

Initial release.