[UX] FDO#54975 - Should Formulas Be Considered Values If there is No Cell Reference - Advice

[Andrew Douglas Pitonyak]

On 11/24/2012 10:39 PM, Joel Madero wrote:
> Hi All,
> We need UX input on this bug:
>
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54975
>
> Seems like we already have two different opinions. Basically we need 
> to know if a cell should be considered a value if there is no cell 
> reference in the formula, for instance:
>
> =24/8
>
> Personally I think it should, a lot of the times with "harder" 
> calculations it's just easier to enter a formula but we are really 
> just aiming at getting to the value. If we consider it a value and not 
> a formula we would expect conditional formatting to work with them, 
> that's the crutch of the bug report.
>
> Regards,
> Joel

It would be very wrong to suddenly consider the cell a constant.... 
which really means that CALC notices that it is "constant" and then 
converts it to a constant.

Now, assume that it is all internal and I write a little macro that 
probes each cell to see if it is a formula. If it is a formula, then 
convert it to a value. Well, if the cell reports that it is a constant, 
then my code would not touch it and it would stay the formula that it 
really is.

I think that what you really want is that for some particular thing that 
you want to do that refuses unless a cell contains a constant, allow 
that to work for a cell that appears to be a constant (based on some 
specific rules). Sounds handy.

-- 
Andrew Pitonyak
My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt
Info:  http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php