Call for sponsorship

[Proektsoftbg]

Dear friends,

Thank you for staying with us and supporting Calcpad. We have passed a long way together. Calcpad developed a lot with the time and got some new and exciting features. Quality and performance improved almost up to a professional level.

However, there is still a lot to be done.

More fantastic features are on the way, but they require a lot of time and work. As the project grows, it is getting more demanding and time consuming. But I do not have much resources to put into work. We have a lot of great ideas, but everything happens too slowly. Calcpad is a promising young software, but still missing important features. I think that every Calcpad user is eager to get them sooner.

So, if you love Calcpad and find it useful, please consider a small donation to support the project. The funds we collect will be used for boosting the development and getting new features done faster. To make a donation, go to our GitHub Sponsors page, select a tier and hit the green "Sponsor" button at the bottom.

We would be deeply grateful for any help, even 1$ tier. Because even small drops can make a lake. In all cases, we will continue developing Calcpad because we are so dedicated and passionate about it. It will be just slower than we wish.

Thank you so much for your kind support!

[Proektsoftbg]

Special thanks to @murilo-s, @mihdicaballero and @Erikbernhart for answering the call so quickly and joining Calcpad sponsors.
Also, gratitudes to @JuanPabloRomaris and @snoozy2323 that still continue supporting us from before.
We should not forget to mention also @hildebrandopsj, @gnnrsmb and @alishrih that donated in the past.
@hildebrandopsj is still with us as a contributor by translating Calcpad to Portuguese, creating Portuguese video lessons, etc.
I hope I haven't missed someone.

Now we are on the half of the way (52%) from achieving our budget goal: https://github.com/sponsors/Proektsoftbg
Lets make Calcpad better together. Even a small contribution can help a lot today.

[murilo-s]

I'm happy to contribute! I just started using Calcpad, but I see great possibilities for it in the future!

I am interested in contribute a little. Please let me know if any contribution is needed (in addition to the sponsorship).

I am converting some of my structural design excel spreadsheets to Calcpad. I uploaded one to my repository and will add another one soon. I work with US design codes, so lots of ACI, AISC, ASCE material.

I'm also from Brazil, so I had contact with @hildebrandopsj. He helped me a lot in the first few days I started using!

[Proektsoftbg]

Hi, @murilo-s!

Thank you very much for your contribution. I am glad that Calcpad is useful for you.

Excel is a very good spreadsheet software, but equations are easier to write and verify in Calcpad. Formulas are not hidden in cells and variables are substituted with values in the report. Also, native units support and numerical methods can save a lot of time. I am happy that Calcpad gets so popular in Brazil.

[ExiMentor]

Hi Ned,

Since I enjoy calcpad so much and basically use it every day, I sponsor the project now with my company.

Do you mind if I place a link and the calcpad logo on my website? I can send you a preview link before.

Best regards and thanks for your work
Steffen

[Proektsoftbg]

Hi, Steffen (@ExiMentor)!

Thank you for your kind support for Calcpad! I am glad that it is useful for your job.
Of course, it is not a problem to add a logo and link on your website. It would be very nice of you.
After you do, please send a backlink.

Also, anyone else who likes, can contribute by "spreading the word". You can publish links on your site, comment in forums and social media, etc. this will help our community to grow and finally will result in a better product. Everyone can use it without paying thousands to large corporations. Calcpad is no longer a personal achievement. Now, it is becoming a result from the efforts of the whole community.

[mihdicaballero]

This is the approach we're adopting. Calcpad has become indispensable in our engineering firm, and I'm encouraging everyone to transition from traditional paper-based calculations to Calcpad or upgrade from Mathcad Express to Calcpad. This software offers numerous additional features and significantly enhances our efficiency. It seamlessly accommodates the straightforward workflows of many engineering hand calculations we perform. Moreover, the way it presents expressions and variables with units is truly impressive.

We still have Excel sheets for multiple calculations, but the tool validation or the birth of a new tool always comes from a Calcpad file, and then it might transition to Excel or Python for more automation. But the documentation and handcalcs are still in Calcpad for a detailed analysis description when it is required.

[mihdicaballero]

@Proektsoftbg you are opening a new window of opportunities here, I didn't know about the Python call D: I'm gonna try it and see what I can do, maybe I don't need to translate to Python anymore.

And yes, it worked pretty smoothly, since what it changes is the order of the syntax. I've also created a prompt to translate from Excel cells to Calcpad format. I don't like to rewrite as you see haha. For example:

Converts into this:

And it works

You can even expose the formulas in the Excel sheet and make it understand what's going on, and to recreate the formulas with variables. It's more tricky and needs multiple tweaks, but it's possible as well.

And this is an example with Python that understand a function syntax :D

[Proektsoftbg]

@mihdicaballero Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

This is truly amazing! I will definitely try it.
Can I use and share your example in public, please? This may help other Calcpad users to convert their old calcs.

[mihdicaballero]

For sure @Proektsoftbg! The more, the merrier.

[Erikbernhart]

I tried it as well, and works suprisingly easy.

thanks for the tip.

[Proektsoftbg]

Great! This is also good for testing purposes. If you find any differences in results between Python and Calcpad, please report. Maybe we have found a bug in Python. ;)

[Proektsoftbg]

Many thanks to all that responded so far. Calcpad is now supported by 8 sponsors and at 92% from our target budget of $40 per month, which is great news:
https://github.com/sponsors/Proektsoftbg

Now we can afford some expenses on the project. I assigned and intern to make a Linux package, issue #94, and extract strings from code to resource files (translation tables), #179, #184. I think Excel is getting jealous ;)

[Grefron]

Awesome! Just became a sponsor myself, you should be at 100% ;-)

A Linux version would be awesome, really looking forward to that. As I have mentioned before, I'm using Calcpad with Python, setting up and exporting calculations automatically. Currently, I'm running a seperate Windows machine solely for Calcpad, but I have another machine doing stuff on Linux (a.o. FE calculations through Calculix).

My workflow is as follows, if anyone is interested. Still quite 'spaghetti' but it works for me and it works surprisingly easy. Maybe i should wrap it up in a Python libary some time.

• Generate a Calcpad file with Python + Jinja2 (a templating engine) to fill in the required variables and requested units (metric or imperial). The template contains a macro that can export variable values in an easily parsable HTML format:

#def output$(descr$;variable$; unit$)
#if output≡1
#val
	'<p class="calcpad-variable"><span class="key">variable$</span><span class="value">'variable$|unit$'</span><span class="unit">unit$</span><span class="descr">descr$</span></p>
#equ
#end if
#end def

• Run Calcpad (again, using Python) to generate an HTML file, this file contains the variable data for anything I wish to export
• Parse the HTML file using Python + BeautifulSoup to extract the exported variables as a dict (in my software, this is used to show selected output to the end-user so the user can quickly see if the outcome is ok)

 with open("output.html", encoding="utf-8") as f:
        soup = BeautifulSoup(f, "html.parser")

keys = [elem.get_text() for elem in soup.body.find_all("span", class_="key")]
values = [elem.get_text() for elem in soup.body.find_all("span", class_="value")]
units = [elem.get_text() for elem in soup.body.find_all("span", class_="unit")]
descrs = [elem.get_text() for elem in soup.body.find_all("span", class_="descr")]

results = [dict(key=k, value=float(v), unit=u, description=d) for k, v, u, d in
        zip(keys, values, units, descrs)]

• Using beautifulsoup, apply css styling to the "calcpad-variable" span to hide it
• Use wkhtmltopdf to convert to PDF (again through Python, I use some custom settings, add a cover page, etc)

Result: fully automated workflow, with in- and output of variables and a completely traceable calculation in a PDF report.

Keep up to great work!

[Proektsoftbg]

Yes! Thank you! Now we are at 100%.

The Linux version is also almost at 100% at least, the command line mode CLI:

With a text editor like Sublime-text and Chromium side by side, you can also work in Linux in a similar way:

I made a Calcpad syntax package with a build system that uses CLI to convert to html and updates Chromium after you press Ctrl+B.
There are just some little things to tweak and I will post it when ready. Later, we will port the UI version as well.