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SMath

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kilele
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SMath

Please consider to include this superb software into the applications section.
Its a freeware alternative to Mathcad. You can find it at
http://en.smath.info/

computerfreaker
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On it

I took a look at some screenshots of the latest stable version and I'm very impressed. I'll see what I can do with this as soon as I get a chance.

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

bpmackow
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I wouldn't trust it

I wouldn't trust any software with version # 0.x. That's so new that it probably doesn't work well or have all the bugs ironed out.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

My use of Google indicates that I am insane.

computerfreaker
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SMath has been around for at

SMath has been around for at least two years (the first download I could find on their forum was from September 2008), so I'm not worried about stability. I gave it a quick trial run and it behaved pretty nicely, and didn't leave much behind for a launcher to clean up.

The legal aspect of this is worrying, though:

* The license is Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives, which means I can't modify the app without permission. I'll e-mail the author.
* SMath uses the .NET Framework (v2) and Xenocode Virtual Application Studio to "portabilize" the .NET aspect of SMath. I'm not at all familiar with the legal pitfalls of doing a "double wrapper" app (since my launcher would wrap Xenocode, which in turn would wrap SMath and .NET), and it's possible packaging this would violate the Xenocode and/or .NET license agreements.

Does anyone with more legal experience want to comment?

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

John T. Haller
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No Xenocode

It's not repackage-able or open source and doesn't even exist as a product anymore. And I'm pretty sure that the .NET library makes no allowance for distribution in this fashion, so it would be a copyright issue in regards to Microsoft's products.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

computerfreaker
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Then I'm out, I think

The legal issues don't sound like they're avoidable, so we wouldn't be able to use the "official" portable version. There is an installer, which should avoid the legal pitfalls, but with the .NET requirement... I think I'll pass, sorry.

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

John T. Haller
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.NET

It looks like it's a .NET app, but as we're adding .NET apps soon, it's probably worth doing.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

kilele
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Some members of the SMath

Some members of the SMath forum have suggested to make a portableapps.com version of the program.
The author responded promptly to this request and he's really interested.

I would appreciate very much if John or some developer could e-mail the author at least to give him guidance by the time .NET apps are supported.
By the way, is there a rough estimate of when .NET support will be ready? ^^

omorr
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I strongly agree with kilele

I strongly agree with kilele

I am a SMath Studio forum member as well (since 2009) and I can confirm that SMath is awesome and quite a stable application (in spite of the version 0.*). It is a great tool for mathematical and engineering calculations. Any user of Mathcad will know how to use SMath instantly.

I am sure that any possible legal aspects of including SMath into prtableapps could be overcome by contacting the SMath author.

kilele
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SMath with Plugins

Hi
There are some news about the portability of SMath.

The author has been providing a portable version which includes the entire .Net2 framework. As already stated in this thread this approach has some license issues.

Actually, one of the other distributions provided by the author is nearly portable, namely the version for Mono-Linux works really nice in Windows as well and seems portable apart from saving settings into other directories than the app's itself.

John T. Haller
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Consideration

I contacted the author about whether he is still interested in inclusion. He had contacted us a few years back.

Unfortunately, SMath currently only works on .NET 2.0 and 3.0/3.5. It does not work on .NET 4.x. This means that it will not run on Windows 8, 8.1, and 10.0 by default as those operating systems have .NET 2.0 and 3.x disabled out of the box. An admin must specifically enable .NET 2.0 and 3.x support. So, SMath won't be in the first batch of .NET apps like KeePass that work out of the box on all modern Windows versions (Vista through 10).

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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