Unit conversion over mouse action

[tlarcher]

Dear community,

I often use browsers and read website in english when it's not my native language. As a result, I often come across the imperial system units which I cannot make sens of since I'm used to the metric system.

• The idea

I think it would be great to have a unit conversion floating bubble; either next to the cursor when hovering the unit (and its numerical value), or when highlighting the text on the webpage. The bubble would then fade out when hovering or highlighting ends.

This would include any type of measuring unit which metric differs from measuring system to measuring system (speed, volume, mass, quantity). So long as there is a value (numbers, letters) and a unit (letters, acronym)

• Challenges

- Depending on countries, magnitude order separators may differ. Some use the comma " , " between integers and decimals, others the dot " . ". Same to separate number every 10e3 digits. So how to identify which is which ? Based on the language/location of the content being stored ? By establishing a standard ?

- Is the idea of a floating bubble even possible within Firefox ? I have no idea.

• Related features

I believe Opera does this already (and I hope this isn't a patented behaviour...). A few extensions exist on Firefox and Chrome but they work as an independant mini window which you have to click, select the correct type of unit etc... It just doesn't feel integrated and swift enough to answer the extremely temporary need of a user reading an article or googling stuff.

I hope this issue will speak to many 🙂

Cheers

[Jon]

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