Help about Calc Functions

[Regina Henschel]

Hi Italo,

please have a look at
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/How_Tos/Calc:_Functions_listed_by_category
and
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/How_Tos/Calc:_Functions_listed_alphabetically

Those indexes are needed in the help.

Italo Vignoli schrieb:
> I have tried to figure out the thinking behind the Calc Functions Help,
> but after a couple of days I have given up because it looks impossible
> to understand.
>
> Basically, the problems are the following:
>
> 1. Functions are not listed alphabetically. Does it make sense? Does it
> make sense to swap them inside the file to create al alphabetical order
> (which is the usual order for human beings)?

Both kind of indexes are needed, see the above mentioned Wiki-pages. In 
the help an alphabetic index of spreadsheet functions is missing.

>
> 2. Size of files is wildly different. There are huge files like Math
> Functions and small files like Financial Functions which are even split
> in sections (where the contents do not follow any order, while it would
> be more useful to have - for instance - "Financial Functions A-L"
> instead of "Financial Functions Part One"). Does it make sense to split
> large files to make them more manageable? Does it make sense to rename
> sections to make them like these: A-L and M-Z?

I find the splitting in "Part One", "Part Two" ... very unhandy, because 
I always need to look in all parts to find a function, when searching 
inside the help. Grouping of functions are meaningful, when they are 
easily confused, for example LOOKUP and MATCH. But in most cases I 
prefer a one function - one file structure together with an index. But 
unfortunately that would end up in more then 400 files. So some grouping 
seems to be necessary.

I personally would prefer to have an alphabetic order inside the 
statistical functions. But a thematic order might be useful too, if the 
topic is mentioned in the header. "Part One", "Part Two"... are useless.
For an example of a thematic structure look at the violet part on bottom 
of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics.

>
> (Of course, this does not mean that I already know how to split help
> files or to create new help files... but it might be worth studying it
> if it makes sense to improve the overall usability of the help, which is
> now almost useless in several areas).

I agree. But even a more precise description like those linked in 
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/How_Tos/Calc:_Functions_listed_alphabetically
does not help all users. There are examples missing, from which the user 
can decide, whether that function is useful in his case. The problem is, 
that such a help with useful examples would be to large to be provided 
as in-build help. Such help needs to go to the Wiki.

Even the pure description might be to complex to be shown in the 
in-build help. For example see my description in 
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/How_Tos/Calc:_CHISQDIST_function

>
> 3. There are<comments>  like "see also TANG". Does it make sense to make
> these comments, which might sometimes be useful, be visible to end
> users? In my opinion, having this kind of stuff buried into XML and
> invisible to the end user does not make sense, so either I uncomment it
> making it visible to end user or I delete it (I feel that the first
> option is the best one).

Are those comments inserted to help translators to get a consistent 
translation for cognate functions?

>
> Sorry for the length. Ciao, Italo

Perhaps more a topic for documentation at global.libreoffice.org than for 
libreoffice at lists.freedesktop.org

Kind regards
Regina