[Libreoffice] Calc usability improvements

Kevin Hunter hunteke at earlham.edu
Fri Nov 12 04:55:39 PST 2010


At 5:32am -0500 Fri, 12 Nov 2010, Michael Meeks wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-11-11 at 23:30 -0800, Patrick Bakker wrote:
>>>> DELETE CELL "HELPER"
>>>>
>>>> The delete cell "helper" dialog box pops up anytime I try to delete
>>>> a cell or cell selection. It gives me options to delete some
>
> And this is deadly annoying too - it is already disabled by default
> in LibreOffice master, delete now just deletes: If you want the old
> behaviour (since you've learned it at length) - you can select the
> 'Compatibility' options for Calc, and the 'legacy' keybindings.
>
> So - hopefully this makes you happy too ;-)

Meh, for me personally, I don't care.  However, I do try to stay on top 
of the small things like this as they change between versions and 
distros so that I can help out when I'm shoulder surfing or helping a 
friend/family member over the phone.  It's amazing that what trips up 
communication over the phone (i.e. when I can't see what they're doing). 
  The big conceptual items aren't the issue.  It's the small stuff, like 
for-granted key strokes doing something else.

>>> - Shift+Del permanently removes the file right then.
>
> Which makes me wonder; should shift-del give you this 'delete contents'
> option in that mode (or is the menu sufficient).
>
>> I didn't know about the Shift + Delete keystroke which helps. Having
>> two work around the easiest keystroke still feels wrong
>
> Agreed; cf. above.

Huh.  Yeah, it's always a play between working with the less-capable 
users, and what perhaps feels "right" to each of us.

This leads to a perhaps bigger thought process of generally all our 
shortcuts and actions.  Is there a list somewhere?  Or are these 
piecemeal throughout the code?  I do see Tools->Customize, which begins 
to address the key mappings.  But what about the "random" settings 
throughout LO like this?

 From bitter experience with my father, this is also the kind of muscle 
memory that gets slowly customized ("fixed") over time, and sometimes 
lost when I install a new version.  It would be nice to have a clear 
notion of how to handle an upgrade path with legacy users' "learned" 
interactions.

Has the upgrade case in terms of keyboard and interaction been thought 
about?  Do we currently write these out somewhere in the user's setup, 
and deal with them appropriately when upgrading?

Kevin


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