[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 74580] FILEOPEN: Add option to disable import dialog when opening a CSV file ( see comment #13)

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74580

--- Comment #27 from csongor at halmai.hu ---
(In reply to Knocks from comment #25)
> And as others have mentioned above, Excel does this right.  LibreOffice does
> it wrong and is user-hostile.  

I have to contradict, sorry. :) 

Sometimes I work with CSV files from different sources. There is one thing that
should be understood clearly. CSV is not a file format. It is an extension
which people use for different formats. 

Literally it means _Comma_ Separated Values but the same extension is used for
tab-separated, semicolon-separated and other file formats. Sometime
windows-line-endings are used, sometimes not. 

You simply cannot rely solely on the extension to guess how you should
interpret the content of a file. That's the reason why two technics can be
used:

1. heuristics, that try to make smart guesses how to understand files. It
mostly works but sometimes not. This is what Excel does and if it fails then
you have no chance to convice it to think differently. (I hate it if this comes
up. :))

2. user interaction, when I can configure each nuances of the content
interpretation.


I think LO does the correct way: make a reasonable guess and then asks the user
whether they confirm or not. This should not be changed. 

A small feature we could do is, however, to introduce a new setting under
Preferences => LibreOffice Calc => Import (doesn't exist yet).

On this page, each file extension could have a separate section, currently only
CSV would exist there. The CSV section should have the following settings:

( ) Apply smart guess
(O) Use the most recent settings

[X] let the user to confirm/change the proposal

With this, the use can toggle whether they want to confirm each dialog or just
trust the system, plus could tell they want to use the heuristics or simply
just use the latest one.

It would be even better in the future if the heuristic would be pluginable:
some users would write smart code that recognise which software created that
particular CSV, and so on. It would go far beyond the topic of this ticket but
the perspective is quite interesting, I think. 

At the moment, I would just stick with the two radio buttons and one checkbox I
detailed above.

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