Talk:Calc/To-Dos/Usability

MOVE

I moved this wiki page to /Calc/To-Dos/Usability in order to structure the Calc wiki site and group all Calc-related content under the Calc-wiki page.

Discoleo 18:18, 1 August 2007 (CEST)

Additional Feature Requests

Highlight Row

Another useful usability issue is described in greater detail in issue 78181.

Basically, Calc should implement a Table View Mode, whereupon:

• alternating rows are coloured using two distinct and contrasting colours (light gray vs dark grey)
• the current row (under the cursor) should be highlighted using a 3rd colour

This would greatly enhance the readability of the table.

ADVANTAGES:

• vs selecting row: row remains highlighted, even IF editing a cell
• vs background color: NO need to change cell backgrounds

Currently almost every internet site formats tables this way. Spreadsheet applications however have failed to implement this user-proven (by millions of internet users) feature. Here is an example from the OOo-web site:

Discoleo 21:00, 23 July 2007 (CEST)

SQL-Queries in Calc

Issue 66588 describes a very useful feature for power-users, that lets them run SQL-queries in Calc.

This borrows basically most of the MS Visual Fox Pro (VFP) functionality. As MS will NO longer develop VFP (see MS announcement), this is a huge opportunity for OOo to step in and fill the vacuum. That also means, there will be revenue from this feature, too.

Please also note, that VFP had some disastrous bugs, non-standard SQL, and, for me most annoying, the terrible GROUP BY counter-feature introduced in VFP 8.0. As the DB used with VFP were basically plain tables, this means that most work could be done in Calc, IF SQL-queries were implemented.

Discoleo 20:41, 25 July 2007 (CEST)

Locale casting functions

Issue 57868 proposes spreadsheet functions to cast dates or currencies explicitly into a chosen locale for display, rather than forcing them to be displayed in the user's own default. Bobharvey 12:49, 26 July 2007 (CEST)

Sexagesimal display formats

Issue 58369 proposes display formats for angular measurements or navigational coordinates Bobharvey 12:49, 26 July 2007 (CEST)

Smaller Issues

UI: Calc Dialogs

Print-Dialog

Issue 80588 describes a reworked design of the Print-Dialog: the often used buttons/options are grouped together in the lower third of the dialog, while the rest is moved to the upper parts. Also, the 'Print-Options' are moved from the 'Options'-Dialog to the main dialog.

Sort-Dialog

Issue 80661 describes a reworked design of the Sort-Dialog.

The 'Range contains column labels'-option is a very useful feature when sorting rows within a spreadsheet. The user must often change this setting as the first row may be or may be not a header row. Currently, if the user has to tag the first row in the selection as 'column labels', he has to enter the 'Options'-tab and make the necessary changes.

Therefore, I propose moving this option to the main dialog pane, see:

I would like to propose following issues to be implemented for 3.0

http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=33851 - behavior of cut/paste with autofilter.

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=72191 - UI for selecting R1C1

http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=8302 - insert into merged cells

http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=59745 - cell notes do not retain relative position to their cells.

http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=69690 - show visual hint when standard filter is applied.

Plugging the drag'n drop single cell issue

Issue 10865 seems to have been around for a while (2003?) and has 23 votes. It's a pretty immediate frustration for people moving from Excel to find that they can't move a single cell, and I can tell you it nearly made me give up on OpenOffice - even though I'm pretty into open software and willing to try new things. It also came up in the forum recently. ImperfectlyInformed 04:52, 18 December 2010 (UTC)