[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 127007] Editable field "Data range:" associated with the context menu of any Chart wall treats its list separator badly: Confusion.

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=127007

--- Comment #3 from Wolfgang Jäger <jag at psilosoph.de> ---
(In reply to m.a.riosv from comment #1)
> Seems the issue of not to accept semicolon as separator is their since the
> introduction of the option to change formula separators with:
> LibreOffice 3.3.0  OOO330m19 (Build:6) tag libreoffice-3.3.0.4
> 
> I don't know why for the case of chart data ranges it needs to be showed or
> allows a different separator than the default semicolon. ...

Though conflicts are not expected as long as there only AbsoluteName(s) of
SheetCellRange can occur, the case should not be treated differenly, imo. Next
enhancement might (should) be to allow there for calculated ranges like the
'Validity' tool does for a long time now. There were more than one questions in
forums not having a satisfying answer without such a new feature.

> ... But maybe for some
> people having something different than their usual office it's annoying.

Hmmm. In the 1970es I read a lot about the didactics of mathematics. I still
remember a statement by Hans Freudenthal
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Freudenthal) which would, roughly
translated to English from memory look something like "We should't teach
mathematics mainly regarding the students specifically easily getting
confused."

Trying to run a respective strategy concerning the design of general purpose
software we might end up with confusing everybody - and knowing no remedy. 
To tidy up the mess with different decimal separators and with conflicts
between one of them (the comma) and commonly used list separators is a task for
institutions in charge of negotiating and defining international standards.
This cannot be done by every/any/some programmers everywhere in the world
independently. 

StarOffice and OpenOffice used the semicolon as the mandatory list separator
which it still is when writing to the persistent representation (file). There
was no GOOD reason to change that. The only argument which may have looked like
a reason surely was compatibility with "en" versions of MS Office. Getting a
bit more compatibility there accepting additional incopmatibility between local
installs of "our" software may not pay.

> In any case not allowing semicolon seems a bug.

Another bug, SERIOUS though not likely to tumble over, is the acceptance of
characters as separators clearly conflicting with other separators and
operators. If the option is needed (and the discussion is over unfortunately)
it MUST restrict the choice to characters NEVER occurring as (in) operators or
at the edges of syntactical items probably getting in contact with the chosen
separator. Explicitly excluded must be any of the characters in
"+-*/%&<=>:!~#$'.(){}", the space, all the digits and letters, and every
character without a classical ASCII code (up to X7E), or a code below X20
(control character) . The only characters I can find for a positive list are
";" and (hesitating) "|" and -if you think it's unavoidable- the damned comma.

I attach a lttle example to explain what I called "fuinny effects" in my
original post.

> Please rephrase the title to be a more concise about the issue.

Sorry. Would you try, please.

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the bug.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-bugs/attachments/20190818/98c1fd51/attachment.html>