Principle of least surprise

[Piet van Oostrum]

Wol <antlists at youngman.org.uk> writes:

> On 06/02/2019 22:33, Piet van Oostrum wrote:
>
>     Wols Lists wrote:
>     
>      > On 06/02/19 16:08, Piet van Oostrum wrote:
>      > > Wol's lists <antlists at youngman.org.uk> writes:
>      > > 
>      > >> Dunno whether this is a bug or a design decision or what, but it's a
>      > >> pretty nasty breach of the principle ...
>      > >>
>      > >> Why, when I click on a cell, does calc NOT select the clicked cell?
>      > >>
>      > >> Okay, I know the answer - it's a hyperlink. BUT.
>      > >>
>      > >> I was editing a csv, I've got a column of email addresses, and some of
>      > >> them have been hyperlinked, some of them haven't. I don't want
>      > >> hyperlinks, I didn't ask for hyperlinks, and I can't see any way of
>      > >> easily removing them!
>      > >>
>      > > Format > Clear Direct Formatting (Ctrl-M on my Mac).
>      > > 
>      > But clicking on the cell doesn't select it so <ctrl>M doesn't work! :-)
>      > 
>     
>     You could click in a nearby cell and move to it with the arrows.
>     
> Sorry, I don't know whether it's my poor English or that you aren't a native speaker, but you seem
> to be completely missing my main point.
>
> THE NEED FOR A WORK-AROUND INDICATES THE EXISTENCE OF A MAJOR UI FUCK-UP!
>
> Clicking in a cell to select it is such a basic piece of spreadsheet functionality, that for it to
> not work is a major problem. Things like that should work ONE HUNDRED percent of the time, not
> ninety-nine percent. Any safety guy will tell you that something that nearly always works is
> actually far more dangerous than something that keeps going wrong.
>
> Oh - and I've just played with the same spreadsheet in Excel. That fucks it up too, just not quite
> so dangerously. It selects the cell, which is good, but launches the link at the same time. So at
> least you get a clear visual surprise, unlike Calc which just silently fails to work as expected
> ...

No need to SHOUT. I agree that selecting a cell just by clicking is a basic functionality. And so is following a link when you click on it. So now there is a conflict of interests. It would be nice if you had the option to choose which one you prefer, because this is user-dependent. Apparently LO choose to give the link priority. So if you don't like that, switch off the links. See the part of my post that you cut out.
-- 
Piet van Oostrum <piet-l at vanoostrum.org>
WWW: http://piet.vanoostrum.org/
PGP key: [8DAE142BE17999C4]