[Libreoffice-ux-advise] new range name dialog proposal

[Christoph Noack]

Hi Kohei, all!

A small disclaimer: currently there are so many topics at the same time,
that I have difficulties to follow all the mails ... so please bear with
me if I missed a comment from your side.


Am Donnerstag, den 03.11.2011, 12:01 -0400 schrieb Kohei Yoshida:
> Hi Christoph,
> 
> On Thu, 2011-11-03 at 08:06 +0100, Christoph Noack wrote:
> > I assumed that because also Excel only provides to update one name or
> > range at a time.
> 
> Ah!  Well, this needs a bit more explanation, I suppose.  In short, this
> assumption of yours is not entirely correct.

Thanks for the explanation below ... I wanted to have a look at Excel
2007 at work, since I don't have a version at home. So I have to rely on
your description, my brain and the documentation in the web.
Unfortunately, the information from the different sources seems to
differ ;-)

Just to remember: The original question was, whether people do
experience bad performance, if only one range name is changed at once.
You told me "yes", so we need to offer a "change multiply names, then
apply the changes". I've asked why Excel can do this, since I understand
their implementation that way.

So here we go ...

> In Excel 2007 and up, the Name Manager dialog is in fact modal, and it
> launches a separate sub dialog to allow editing of individual names one
> at a time.

An example of the Excel 2010 manage names dialog can be seen here:
http://media.wiley.com/Lux/10/209010.image0.jpg

I understand it the following way ... adding / editing a single entry
launches a separate window that needs confirmation. It exists a shortcut
to change the expression - but that also needs confirmation via the
checkmark button. But, the manage names dialog itself is non-modal,
since it generally seems to allow working with the document. 

Only one exception: "You cannot use the Name Manager dialog box while
you are changing the contents of the cell." according:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/define-and-use-names-in-formulas-HA010147120.aspx

So, in general, the name manager is non-modal.


> Whether it updates the name directly in the model directly
> when it's updated in the dialog is unknown (since we don't know what
> Excel does internally), but because the main Name Manager dialog is
> modal, it won't perform re-calculation until that dialog is dismissed.
> What this means is that Excel's name manager dialog only performs
> re-calculation *once* even when you modify two or more names as long as
> you don't dismiss the main dialog between the editing of the names.

If I understand the Excel help well enough, it works differently. The
documentation (see link above) mentions several times: "The Close button
only closes the Name Manager dialog box. It is not required to commit
changes that have already been made."

To me it seems that all the actions within the manage names dialog do
handle "one change" per time - whether it is a modal dialog, or the
expression field. That was my starting point to ask why Excel seems to
perform well enough for such a interaction design.

> Versions prior to Excel 2007 used different dialog set, which is much
> similar to our current one, but the same principle still applies there
> as well.

Yep, I'm aware about that. The old dialog is what we want to improve,
right? :-)

> Hope this clarifies things a bit.
> 
> Kohei

Sorry for the de-clarification ... to be honest, I still don't have a
good counter proposal to work around all the potential constraints, by
still being perceived very good.

Cheers,
Christoph