User Interface for Advanced Settings - You're Gonna Need a Bigger Byte

Gunnar Kaestle
Gunnar Kaestle
Joined: 14 Jul 06
Posts: 8
Credit: 21289
RAC: 58
Topic 231059

Dear all,

at least on OS X 10.11 the browsers

- Chrome 103.0.5060.134

- Firefox 78.15.0esr

- Safari 11.1.2  

display an input field in the preferences which is not wide enough - at least not for 3 digit numbers or numbers including a decimal sign.

Crome only shows 1.5 digits and Firefox only 2.5 digits which is not sufficient for 204.8 Kbytes/sec nor for 100 GB free. Safari is doing fine, except when more than 3 digits are needed (e.g. for 204.8 or 51.2 Kbytes/sec) I am happy to upload a few screenshots, if somebody tells me how to do it.

Regards,

Gunnar

 

PS. 

Regarding "Kbytes/sec", the SI unit for time is "s", not "sec". The prefix for 1000 is spelled in lower-case: "k" and "kilo", not "K" and "Kilo". "

Capitalization. SI prefixes for submultiples (smaller quantities or sub units) are formatted with all lowercase symbols while prefixes for multiples (larger quantities or whole units) use uppercase symbols with the exception of three: kilo (k), hecto (h) and deka (da). 

 

Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
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Gunnar Kaestle

Gunnar Kaestle wrote:

Regarding "Kbytes/sec", the SI unit for time is "s", not "sec". The prefix for 1000 is spelled in lower-case: "k" and "kilo", not "K" and "Kilo". "

Hmmm, at least for "Kbytes" it was common but informal practice for a long time to write "KB" or "Kbytes" instead of "kB" to refer to a multiple of 1,024 bytes (based on a power of 2: 2^10 = 1,024) instead of 1,000 (10^3). You typically mean 1,024 bytes when refering to "Kbytes" but 1,000 bits when referring to "kbit". File sizes on storages are typically specified in units based on 1,024: (KB, MB = 1,024 * 1,024, GB = ...) while data volumes transmitted via networks are always specified in bit/s, rarely in bytes/s, e.g. 50 Mbit/s, where M is the SI prefix (10^6).

In 1999 NIST and IEC defined unique SI prefixes for binary units, e.g. "MiB" (1,024 * 1,024) instead of "MB" (since then unambigously means: 10^6). With larger units the difference between binary and decimal units (1,024 vs. 1,000) grew significantly; e.g. 1 PiB is 11.18% more than 1 PB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#Multiple-byte_units

Gunnar Kaestle
Gunnar Kaestle
Joined: 14 Jul 06
Posts: 8
Credit: 21289
RAC: 58

This refers to IEC

This refers to IEC 60027-2:2019, Letter symbols to be used in electrical technology
– Part 2: Telecommunications and electronics.

Consequently, this is either Kibibyte (2^10) or kilobyte (10^3), using the prefix symbol "Ki" or "k": KiB or kB - Kbytes is something colloquial but not a scientific term, let alone the abbreviation "sec". 

Regards,
Gunnar

Gunnar Kaestle
Gunnar Kaestle
Joined: 14 Jul 06
Posts: 8
Credit: 21289
RAC: 58

This refers to IEC

This refers to IEC 60027-2:2019, Letter symbols to be used in electrical technology
– Part 2: Telecommunications and electronics.

Consequently, this is either Kibibyte (2^10) or kilobyte (10^3), using the prefix symbol "Ki" or "k": KiB or kB - Kbytes is something colloquial but not a scientific term, let alone the abbreviation "sec". 

Regards,
Gunnar

Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Joined: 2 May 07
Posts: 1032
Credit: 17619729
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Now here are two Germans

Now here are two Germans paying attention for rules and conventions of non-crucial details. We are like that, aren't we? ;-)

Back to the point: the input fields are a bit too narrow, so you can't see everything you type. It should work anyway. I suspect an annoying but minor flaw. Eventually someone will adjust that for OS X.

[EDIT to add:] Gunnar seems to be an engineer and scientist. I completely understand that. I go nuts myself when people in scientific publications use physical units improperly.

Oliver Behnke
Oliver Behnke
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Administrator
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And it's indeed kind of

And it's indeed kind of embarrassing, given we're a physics project based in Germany - duh! To be fair, though, our website is based on BOINC and the upstream version simply used those units at the time. Yet, we should have corrected those right away.

FYI, we're in the process of migrating our website to a new platform. These details should be taken care of as part of that. I'll add them to the list.

Thanks,
Oliver

Einstein@Home Project

Gunnar Kaestle
Gunnar Kaestle
Joined: 14 Jul 06
Posts: 8
Credit: 21289
RAC: 58

I believe the International

I believe the International System of Units should be familiar to any science project, not only to those which are of French origin.

Gunnar Kaestle
Gunnar Kaestle
Joined: 14 Jul 06
Posts: 8
Credit: 21289
RAC: 58

Scrooge McDuck

Scrooge McDuck wrote:

Back to the point: the input fields are a bit too narrow, so you can't see everything you type. It should work anyway. I suspect an annoying but minor flaw. Eventually someone will adjust that for OS X.

Yes, the input fileds are too narrow, and I believe this depends by the browser type. But 1-2 digits wider does not hurt, does it? It makes life easier while setting the wanted settings in the preferences.

Regards,

Gunnar

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