Another new dimension - area - has been added to SensibleUnits.com.
This means you can now put in quantities of hectares or square miles and get answers in terms of football pitches, postage stamps and, of course, Belgiums. I'm reliably informed that there are journalists dying for this functionality.
A nifty new feature to go along with this is that you may now use objects as an input (e.g. "8 cows"). This allows you to express one object (or certain countries) in terms of another, and therefore answer the crucial question: just how many Luxembourgs is Wales anyway?
All input objects have to be expressed in plural right now (except ones that are difficult to pluralise, like Wales), but I'll be working to make it more user-friendly. In the meantime, try typing "2 belgiums", "8 cows" or "1 wales".
Other minor additions:
- Exponential notation can be used for input numbers, e.g. "4e8 kg".
- Very large or small numbers are shown in standard form under the input box, e.g. "1.2 x 10-8 feet".
- Decimal values may be entered with no leading zero, e.g. ".03 sq mi".
2 comments:
I totally enjoy the converter!
Some proposals, though:
- Is there a way to have a list of the available units supported, that is easy to browse? this might give more creative ideas how to use this thing :)
- I'd enjoy a possibility to propose additional units from the user.. maybe in a form or so, for subsequent approval and adding?
- And of course, some more unit types, e.g. SI units and derivatives, currency (why not?)
Any chance for direct embedding in a web-page?
Keep the good work, anyway!
@mindcorrosive
Thanks for your comment. Some answers:
- Right now I'm working on an autocomplete feature that should make inputting units more intuitive.
- A dedicated user suggestion form is a good idea - I'll add this to my (rapidly expanding!) list of stuff to add.
- More units are on their way. Currency is difficult though, because inflation would make it inaccurate over time.
- Some kind of embeddable blog/website widget is also on my list, but that might take a while.
Glad you enjoyed the site!
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