Principle of least surprise

[Wols Lists]

On 06/02/19 16:08, Piet van Oostrum wrote:
> Wol's lists <antlists at youngman.org.uk> writes:
> 
>> Dunno whether this is a bug or a design decision or what, but it's a
>> pretty nasty breach of the principle ...
>>
>> Why, when I click on a cell, does calc NOT select the clicked cell?
>>
>> Okay, I know the answer - it's a hyperlink. BUT.
>>
>> I was editing a csv, I've got a column of email addresses, and some of
>> them have been hyperlinked, some of them haven't. I don't want
>> hyperlinks, I didn't ask for hyperlinks, and I can't see any way of
>> easily removing them!
>>
> Format > Clear Direct Formatting (Ctrl-M on my Mac).
> 
But clicking on the cell doesn't select it so <ctrl>M doesn't work! :-)

Sorry I'm being facetious.

But there was a reason I titled my post "principle of least surprise".
It's pretty fundamental to me that clicking in a cell selects that cell.
So *why* is Calc changing that behaviour in a manner that is going to
surprise - painfully - a lot of people?

Plus <ctrl>M doesn't undo all the other stuff like changing the cell
colour. Is there any way to disable all this easily, seeing as I neither
want nor need it? To me this seems like an auto-corrupt disaster along
the lines of the story about the professor entering student grades, and
Excel auto-complete changing all the straight grades to plus or minus
ones. A very nasty surprise if you're not expecting it, and a bugger to
prevent it doing it. And a seriously corrupt spreadsheet if you don't
spot it in time.

Cheers,
Wol