Microsoft Is Open Sourcing…Windows Calculator

It’s no secret Microsoft has been a major contributor in the open-source community as of late. The company has open-sourced a bunch of major projects and tools over the last few years, and it’s now open-sourcing another major part of Windows: the calculator app.

Windows Calculator is being open-sourced under the MIT license on GitHub. The full project is available on GitHub right now, allowing developers to get access to the full source-code that powers the built-in calculator on Windows 10.

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“As developers, if you would like to know how different parts of the Calculator app work, easily integrate Calculator logic or UI into your own applications, or contribute directly to something that ships in Windows, now you can. Calculator will continue to go through all usual testing, compliance, security, quality processes, and Insider flighting, just as we do for our other applications,” Microsoft said in a blog post.

The company is also publicly sharing the product roadmap for the app. Microsoft plans to improve the Fluent Design of the app and add the ability to pin Calculator on top of other apps, as well as new customization options this year.

You can find the project on GitHub here, and much like every other open-source project, you will be able to contribute to the project and if you are lucky enough, these changes could even ship with Windows sometime. Pretty awesome.

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Conversation 27 comments

  • Usman

    Premium Member
    06 March, 2019 - 1:33 pm

    <p>I am happy about this, the calculator app is so frustrating, having to manually select 'scientific' to put in brackets. compared to phone based calculators, it is very lacking, no carret/cursor support, no backspacing equations and god forbid you want to change a operator (+-x/ etc) but already typed in a number.</p><p><br></p><p>I for one look forward to any improvement to it.</p>

  • ggolcher

    Premium Member
    06 March, 2019 - 1:37 pm

    <p>Is this the beginning of open sourcing all Windows apps? </p>

  • jules_wombat

    06 March, 2019 - 1:49 pm

    <p>As one of the truly ugliest Applications, Calculator deserves complete rewrite, possibly with a proper dark mode. </p>

    • warren

      06 March, 2019 - 2:45 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#409520">In reply to Jules_Wombat:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Calculator already has a dark mode. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

      • skane2600

        08 March, 2019 - 6:45 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#409539">In reply to warren:</a></em></blockquote><p>Perhaps he means "dark" in the sense of depressing.</p>

    • codymesh

      06 March, 2019 - 7:47 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#409520">In reply to Jules_Wombat:</a></em></blockquote><p>get some eyeglasses. </p>

  • glenn8878

    06 March, 2019 - 1:58 pm

    <p>They should open source Windows Phone. Maybe they'll win some marketshare in mobile devices.</p>

    • Kevin Costa

      06 March, 2019 - 4:33 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#409524">In reply to glenn8878:</a></em></blockquote><p>A good chunk of Windows Phone kernel and internals is shared with classic Windows (both run on NT). Open sourcing WP is open sourcing Windows, and I'm sure that MS is not ready for that yet…</p>

      • glenn8878

        06 March, 2019 - 10:01 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#409566">In reply to Kevin_Costa:</a></em></blockquote><p>That would be the bonus. Windows has already declined in marketshare. Android outpaced them all. </p>

        • Kevin Costa

          07 March, 2019 - 6:09 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#409665">In reply to glenn8878:</a></em></blockquote><p>Declined a bit (Android = 2B devices, Windows = 1,5B devices), but is still massive. MS wants stabilish itself as a cloud leader/reference before open sourcing its golden egg chicken. When most of MS revenue comes from cloud services, there is no reason to keep Windows a secret anymore.</p>

  • Stooks

    06 March, 2019 - 2:06 pm

    <p>OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! </p>

  • skane2600

    06 March, 2019 - 4:18 pm

    <p>They chose the wrong Windows calculator although I guess you open source the version that needs the most improvement.</p>

  • martinusv2

    Premium Member
    06 March, 2019 - 5:25 pm

    <p>Hope they do the same with Mail and Groove.</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    06 March, 2019 - 5:27 pm

    <p>Since this was supposedly the same app on phones, tablets, PCs, maybe even Xbox and smart toasters, this may show MSFT's own take on UI code across multiple types of devices. In that sense, interesting.</p><p>However, most days I have either Excel or GNU R up and running, so I have little need for the Calculator app. Very infrequent hexadecimal arithmetic is about the extent of my usage.</p>

  • StoneJack

    06 March, 2019 - 11:02 pm

    <p>MS should outsource Windows and Office altogether and become a server farm</p>

    • Greg Green

      07 March, 2019 - 8:51 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#409675">In reply to StoneJack:</a></em></blockquote><p>Wouldn’t that be wonderful! Then there could be a performance version of Windows for gamers, devoid of all cruft, a stability version of Windows for businesses, devoid of all cruft, and an appliance version of Windows for those that don’t want to think about computers, they just want them to work.</p>

      • codymesh

        07 March, 2019 - 3:21 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#409738">In reply to Greg Green:</a></em></blockquote><p>gamer logic strikes again</p>

  • Greg Green

    07 March, 2019 - 8:53 am

    <p>They’re really starting small, aren’t they? Not what you would call courage or conviction.</p>

  • markbyrn

    Premium Member
    07 March, 2019 - 9:05 am

    <p>Alright Linux fan boys, are you happy now?</p>

  • Ekim

    Premium Member
    07 March, 2019 - 12:58 pm

    <p>Calculator? Really? That's the hello world of Windows programming. </p>

    • skane2600

      08 March, 2019 - 6:42 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#409845">In reply to Ekim:</a></em></blockquote><p>More like the hello world of UWP programming.</p>

  • t.gill

    07 March, 2019 - 1:22 pm

    <p>In reply to Greg Green…Wouldn't that be wonderful, then Windows could be just as big of a fragmented mess as Android is….</p>

  • hoomgar

    07 March, 2019 - 1:37 pm

    <p>I'm sorry but I almost spit my drink on my screen!&nbsp; LOL!&nbsp; :D</p><p><br></p><p>"has been a major contributor in the open-source community as of late"</p><p>"another major part"</p><p><br></p><p>Huge news&nbsp; LOL!</p><p><br></p><p>"As developers, if you would like to know how different parts of the Calculator app work"</p><p>You could get this, or any other of hundreds of free and open sourced calc apps.</p><p><br></p><p>Stay tuned, they may be releasing Notepad next!&nbsp; I can't wait!</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • cp3822

    08 March, 2019 - 5:51 am

    <p>i think that would be really an additional bonus. As you know windows has already declined in market share. The fast grown Android outpaced them all. Thanks for the <a href="https://www.charismaticplanet.com&quot; target="_blank">info</a>. </p>

  • bcalla

    08 March, 2019 - 7:55 pm

    <p>Best calculator ever is still the Powertoy calculator. still run it in Win 10</p>

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