Units

What is a unit?

Meter, centimeter, millimeter, micrometer, light year, etc are units of the category length for example. If you want to add, change or delete untis, edit the textfiles Installationdirectory/data/units/*.list

Description of a file containing units

The ".list" files are used to specify units and factors. Empty lines and lines with a leading hash (#) are ignored by the program. The sequence in the GUI appears as you defined them in the ".list" files.

Format of a line

Each token is separated by a colon. Each line must have at least two tokens: "Name" and "Value". This is the full format:
Name:Value:Countrycode:Validity:Selection

Description of the tokens

Name

The name appears in the combo box.


Value

The factor of the unit. Basic units like meter, second, watt, kilogramm, etc. should have the factor 1. Here are some examples to show the syntax of valid values:
1             = 1.0
2.45          = 2.45
1e-4          = 0.0001
2.45e3        = 2450
1/2           = 0.5
1e-4/9        = 0.00001111...


Countrycode

What countries are using the unit? A little flag shows the country or the countries which are using the unit.
The NC find flags in the file "lib/flags30x15iso3166.jar", their code is defined in the ISO 3166 standard. The country code has to be specified in lowercase characters ("de" for Germany). Self created flags can be found in "installationdirecotry/data/images/flags/Countrycode.png". Only png is supported.


Validity

Set the value of this token to "false", if the unit is old, obsolete, unusual or not valid anymore. The unit will be displayed with a grey textcolor in the combo box. Otherwise a black textcolor is shown. Valid values for the Validity are "true" and "false".


Selection

This token will be evaluated if the category will change. Valid values are:
source = unit will be used as source
target = unit will be used as target
source,target = unit will be used as source and target