Principle of least surprise

[Wols Lists]

On 08/02/19 09:04, Piet van Oostrum wrote:
> Wol <antlists at youngman.org.uk> writes:
> 
>> On 06/02/2019 22:33, Piet van Oostrum wrote:
>>
>>     Wols Lists wrote:
>>     
>>      > 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! :-)
>>      > 
>>     
>>     You could click in a nearby cell and move to it with the arrows.
>>     
>> Sorry, I don't know whether it's my poor English or that you aren't a native speaker, but you seem
>> to be completely missing my main point.
>>
>> THE NEED FOR A WORK-AROUND INDICATES THE EXISTENCE OF A MAJOR UI FUCK-UP!
>>
>> Clicking in a cell to select it is such a basic piece of spreadsheet functionality, that for it to
>> not work is a major problem. Things like that should work ONE HUNDRED percent of the time, not
>> ninety-nine percent. Any safety guy will tell you that something that nearly always works is
>> actually far more dangerous than something that keeps going wrong.
>>
>> Oh - and I've just played with the same spreadsheet in Excel. That fucks it up too, just not quite
>> so dangerously. It selects the cell, which is good, but launches the link at the same time. So at
>> least you get a clear visual surprise, unlike Calc which just silently fails to work as expected
>> ...
> 
> No need to SHOUT. I agree that selecting a cell just by clicking is a basic functionality. And so is following a link when you click on it. So now there is a conflict of interests. It would be nice if you had the option to choose which one you prefer, because this is user-dependent. Apparently LO choose to give the link priority. So if you don't like that, switch off the links. See the part of my post that you cut out.
> 
Sorry. But if that's the case, why does LO do NEITHER?

Point is, if I'm using calc, I'm using a spreadsheet. I expect it to
behave like a spreadsheet, not a browser. And the current functionality
is DANGEROUS. I shouldn't have to go and change the options to make calc
behave like a spreadsheet.

As I said, I only discovered this because I was using calc *as a
spreadsheet* and suddenly discovered that it was (a) making changes
behind my back, and (b) as a result of those changes, I'd damaged my
spreadsheet!

Again, we can probably blame it on Microsoft :-) but really I would
prefer my spreadsheet to behave like a spreadsheet, not a browser. And
that's why I was shouting. You're not addressing my point which is that,
imho, it is a *major* design fail for the *default* behaviour to
suddenly behave in a completely different (*and* *dangerous*) way. If
you're in a car, would you really like a corner case, where, every time,
by default the car swapped the brake and accelerator over if you were
turning right in third gear? The car is being completely deterministic -
all you have to do is remember to use the other foot! Maybe I'm too
naive, but should I really have to mess around with the settings to get
a single-click to work the same way here as it does EVERYWHERE else?

Oh - and this has ramifications elsewhere. Probably the easiest way for
me to try and fix this is that whenever calc converts text to a
hyperlink, is to just <ctrl>Z to undo the hyperlink. Except last time I
hit this in calc, <ctrl>Z didn't work that way, I just could NOT disable
calc's autoformat. Oh - and the standard way of disabling the autoformat
didn't work because it was doing it elsewhere. I think I need to go and
see whether that UI nightmare has been fixed ...

Please. I *don't* want to have to fuck about with the settings, in order
to make calc behave like a spreadsheet!

Cheers,
Wol