I built this small symbolic algebra calculator as a side project, and I just added a new UI concept I'm excited about: the calculator creates variable buttons dynamically based on whatever the user types.
Type "furnace1", and a button for furnace1 instantly appears. Type multi-character variables like b1 or house2, and they become buttons too. It's a calculator metaphor, but for symbolic equations instead of only numbers.
It's built with Vaadin 24 and Spring Boot in just a few hundred lines of Java. The backend calls a symbolic solver, and the UI stays clean because only the variables actually used appear on the screen.
Live demo: https://algebrator-repo1a-production.up.railway.app/
Source code: https://github.com/eGantry/algebrator-repo1a
Would love feedback on: - the dynamic-variable UI idea, - the UX flow, - whether this approach feels intuitive for math/puzzle problems, - any ideas for extensions or edge cases to test.
Thanks for taking a look!