[Libreoffice] Calc usability improvements

[Kohei Yoshida]

On Fri, 2010-11-12 at 10:32 +0000, Michael Meeks wrote:
> Hi Patrick,
> 
> On Thu, 2010-11-11 at 23:30 -0800, Patrick Bakker wrote:
> > >> SEMI-COLON INSTEAD OF COMMA AS FUNCTION ARGUMENT SEPARATOR
> 
> 	Kohei (or was it Jody) fixed this many moons ago; I believe the default
> is set to improve usability here in LibreOffice;

Yup, I did this around 2.4 or 3.0, I don't remember which version.  The
default for the English locale is to use ',' unless the decimal
separator is ',', in which case it uses ';' by default.

> > >> 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.

Or, the old behavior is mapped to the Backspace key.  The old behavior
was that 

* Delete - launches the delete content dialog
* Backspace - simply deletes without the dialog.

and what we did is to simply swap these two key bindings.

> 
> 	So - hopefully this makes you happy too ;-)
> 
> > > - Shift+Del permanently removes the file right then.

Heh, I didn't know about this one.  Actually, Shift+Del deletes the
content, select the cell, and move the content to the clipboard (as I
discovered just now).

In fact, it appears that Shift-Delete is mapped to 'Cut' (same as
Ctrl-X), while Shift-Insert is mapped to 'Paste' (same as Ctrl-V).

> 
> 	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.
> 
> > >> COPY&  PASTE TO A CELL WITH AN EXISTING VALUE
> > >>
> > >> The first time I copy and pasted a cell formula into another cell
> > >> which already had something in it a dialog came up asking something
> > >> like "This cell already has a value. Are you sure you want to do copy
> > >> a new value in?" EXTREMELY annoying.
> 
> 	Well, this winner is still in the code :-) and yes, it is pretty
> annoying.
> 
> > > Heh.  With the power of Ctrl+Z at my fingertips, I agree that that dialog
> > > box could be seen as an annoyance.  However, I have witnessed many times, a
> > > less than power-user bless that dialog so they didn't overwrite their data.
> > >  In this light, I wouldn't be opposed to it's removal, provided LO informs
> > > the user when they have copied over data, and reminds them that they can
> > > undo the action.
> 
> 	Might be a good easy-hack; how we tell the user in an unobtrusive way
> that this has happened, I don't know - some good UI ideas there
> appreciated; the 'status bar' is not such a great plan I suspect for
> this. "alpha transparent, hovering notifications" are a nice idea too
> but ... ;-)

BTW, just to provide a reference point, Excel doesn't launch any
overwrite warning at all, which may be a better option since we always
have undo.

In in our own Writer doesn't launch overwrite warning when pasting
contents to overwrite the existing inside Writer table; it just
overwrites it.

> 
> > Yeah, I don't see the value in this warning at all but if it is useful
> > at all to anybody I would think a less obtrusive, after the fact quiet
> > notification that existing date was overwritten would make more sense
> > to me.
> 
> 	I wonder if switching the polarity of the check-box - so it is checked
> might help people 'see' it, and thus un-check it to get rid of it (some
> Mozilla dialogs do that I guess ?).

That's probably a huge improvement there alone.  But I personally
wouldn't mind the whole dialog be gone.  I've checked Calc, Excel,
Google Docs and Gnumeric, and Calc is the only spreadsheet app that
warns about overwriting existing cells.

Kohei

-- 
Kohei Yoshida, LibreOffice hacker, Calc
<kyoshida at novell.com>