[discuss] $1000.00 bounty.
Eric Wood
rows. I do basic cell formatting, vlookups, functions to transform text,
sorting, saving, creating & deleting several work sheets, etc. Below are a
list of problems and short-commings when using Calc for spreadsheet work I
typically do in Excel. The issues are not highly specific to me - meaning I
think everyone that does spreadsheets for a living would benefit from a
little bit of polishing. Therefor, I'm putting up a $1000.00 (US) bounty to
have all these issues (which give me ulcers) axed.
I'm using OpenOffice 1.1.0.
For your consideration:
Sheets:
1. The first problem is the 32,000 row limit. This issue is being worked
on and I understand that it might be extended by the next version of
OpenOffice.
2. With multiple sheets open, you have at the bottom of the screen, the
sheet-tab area, you can "Select All Sheets", but it's tricky to "Unselect
All Sheets". The Edit->Sheet->Select.. menu option seems to work. But the
right-click method only allows me to "Select All Sheets" again. If I
drag-n-drop a sheet tab to some gray space to re-order the sheet (or drag by
just 1 pixel), then it will unselect all sheets after some intensive
pointless thrashing. Unselecting sheets ith the mouse is kind of flakey
here.
3. A single-click rename on a sheet tab would be nice. And renaming on the
tab is nicer than using a dialog box.
4. When resizing the horizontal scroll bar, the active sheet-tab should
always remain visible and not be covered up by the scroll bar. Likewise if
you shrink the scroll bar and increase the sheet-tab area, the tabs should
automatically fill in available space instead of the sheets staying far off
to the left - why have wasted grey space or have to use the arrow buttons?
5. Insert Sheet -> No. of Sheets. Need to restrict input to 256 -
SHEETS(). Doing these big sheet operation sometimes causes Calc to minimize
or set itself to the background.
Series:
1. Can't double-click on the lower right square of a highlighted cell and
have a series automatically fill all the downward. You forced to drag
(highlight) the size of the series you want to fill.
2. The alt tag (yellow box next to mouse) showing you the row number or cell
location renders very slow compared to Excel. I think is contributes to slow
cell selection when dragging the mouse.
3. When doing vlookup, and dragging a series, you'll notice the first
parameter increases as it should but that lookup array reference parameter
also increases:
=VLOOKUP(K2;'City Abbreviations'.D1:E1039;2;0)
=VLOOKUP(K3;'City Abbreviations'.D2:E1040;2;0)
I could do a SHIFT-F4 to convert a cell from relative to absolute:
=VLOOKUP(K2;'City Abbreviations'.D1:E1039;2;0)
becomes:
=VLOOKUP($K$2;'City Abbreviations'.$D$1:$E$1039;2;0)
but I have to manually edit the first paramenter:
=VLOOKUP(K2;'City Abbreviations'.$D$1:$E$1039;2;0)
IMHO, the function wizard should have made the array (the second parameter)
absolute addresses instead of relative. In fact, there may be more
functions should be made absolute upon function creation by the Autopilot.
I think Excel does this by putting in a '!' before the address.
Also, you can't select a column heading to define a table array - your
forced to highlight all the cells with your mouse. And if I have a lot of
rows, that takes a while.
Paste Special:
1. Where is Paste Special -> Values Only. A cell with =LEN(A2) has a value
of, say, 10. How can I paste that number 10 in another cell? Also the
"Paste All" check box needs to only gray the dependant checkboxes, no sense
in graying out "Strings, Notes, Objects, etc.". Let the user still be able
to read the choices.
Typing:
1. Shift-Backspace should still backspace. I get an ulcer from this one. ;-)
Columns:
1. By highlighting an entire column, you can not SHIFT-drag the column and
place it in between other columns. Arranging the order of the columns I
need is difficult without SHIFT-dragging.
Rows:
1. Freeze Titles (aka. lock titles). I think another way to freeze a title
rows is that if the user selects ROWS 1 thru X, then you get a right-click
option to freeze the title row(s) you actually select. No need to train
user that you must select a cell below and to the right. 99% time, you want
to freeze ROW 1. So if the entire ROW 1 is selected, can't we just freeze
it? I think both methods can happily co-exist.
Objects:
1. Positioning an object (say clipart) with the arrow keys seems to move the
object by predetermined units. I typically would expect a CTRL-ARROW KEY
behavior which would allow me to position the object 1 pixel at a time.
Opening Files:
1. I understand this is being worked on but want to illustrate the
importance of it to me. I frequently produce .xls and .qpw files from my
server. These files are actually TAB delimited text files. The reason I
slap an .xls/.qpw entention on it is so that Windows can assocatiate that
file with Excel or Quattro. Both programs happily open it up knowning that
they are not really a spreadsheets - but the file would still make sense to
be in tabular format so the program goes ahead and imports it. Irregardless
of the file name extension (.xls, .qpw, .sxc, .txt, etc.), if that file-type
has a registered association with Calc, I would still like Calc to determine
if this file is a delimited-type file (CSV or TAB). Right now, Calc hands
the file off to Writer for opening these files.
==================
When complete, let me know who to make the check out to!
-Eric Wood
International Plastics, Inc.
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Daniel Carrera
you'll find most developers. I'm sure that there's at least one person
there who wouldn't mind an extra grand. I'd go for it, but I am just
getting started in OOo development.
You should also send this to the Calc list, but alas I could not find the
list address.
Cheers,
Daniel.
--
Daniel Carrera | Top 100 things you don't want the sysadmin to say...
PhD student. |
Math Dept. UMD | 19. hey, what does mkfs do?
Daniel Carrera
> Eric Wood wrote:
> >I maintain a city/state/zip association file consisting of about 48,000
> >rows. I do basic cell formatting, vlookups, functions to transform text,
> >sorting, saving, creating & deleting several work sheets, etc. Below are a
> >list of problems and short-commings when using Calc for spreadsheet work I
> >typically do in Excel. The issues are not highly specific to me - meaning I
> >think everyone that does spreadsheets for a living would benefit from a
> >little bit of polishing. Therefor, I'm putting up a $1000.00 (US) bounty
> >to
> >have all these issues (which give me ulcers) axed.
> >
>
> splitting it up into a number of subbounties.
Good idea.
No single person would likely do the whole thing. If you have several
subbounties one would, in theory, have several people working at the same
time on different bounties.
Furthermore, other interested parties can contribute to some of the sub
bounties. Like say, I have $300 to burn (I don't) I can add them to the
35,000-row-limit bounty to make that bounty juicier.
Speaking of which, who much will you pay for a filter for the BibTeX file
format? ;-) (note: that's what I'm working on).
Cheers,
Daniel Rentz
Eric Wood schrieb:
> Sheets:
> 1. The first problem is the 32,000 row limit. This issue is being worked
> on and I understand that it might be extended by the next version of
> OpenOffice.
Yes.
> 2. With multiple sheets open, you have at the bottom of the screen, the
> sheet-tab area, you can "Select All Sheets", but it's tricky to "Unselect
> All Sheets". The Edit->Sheet->Select.. menu option seems to work. But the
> right-click method only allows me to "Select All Sheets" again. If I
> drag-n-drop a sheet tab to some gray space to re-order the sheet (or drag by
> just 1 pixel), then it will unselect all sheets after some intensive
> pointless thrashing. Unselecting sheets ith the mouse is kind of flakey
> here.
Unselecting will be possible in OOo 2.0 with keyboard:
http://sc.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=825805&listName=features
Nevertheless a context menu entry is still missing.
> 3. A single-click rename on a sheet tab would be nice. And renaming on the
> tab is nicer than using a dialog box.
Possible for ages: ALT+Click. But may not work in some window managers.
It is planned to add Rename-after-double-click to OOo 2.0.
> 4. When resizing the horizontal scroll bar, the active sheet-tab should
> always remain visible and not be covered up by the scroll bar. Likewise if
> you shrink the scroll bar and increase the sheet-tab area, the tabs should
> automatically fill in available space instead of the sheets staying far off
> to the left - why have wasted grey space or have to use the arrow buttons?
Sounds interesting.
> 5. Insert Sheet -> No. of Sheets. Need to restrict input to 256 -
> SHEETS(). Doing these big sheet operation sometimes causes Calc to minimize
> or set itself to the background.
And this too. :)
> Series:
> 1. Can't double-click on the lower right square of a highlighted cell and
> have a series automatically fill all the downward. You forced to drag
> (highlight) the size of the series you want to fill.
> 2. The alt tag (yellow box next to mouse) showing you the row number or cell
> location renders very slow compared to Excel. I think is contributes to slow
> cell selection when dragging the mouse.
> 3. When doing vlookup, and dragging a series, you'll notice the first
> parameter increases as it should but that lookup array reference parameter
> also increases:
>
> =VLOOKUP(K2;'City Abbreviations'.D1:E1039;2;0)
> =VLOOKUP(K3;'City Abbreviations'.D2:E1040;2;0)
>
> I could do a SHIFT-F4 to convert a cell from relative to absolute:
> =VLOOKUP(K2;'City Abbreviations'.D1:E1039;2;0)
> becomes:
> =VLOOKUP($K$2;'City Abbreviations'.$D$1:$E$1039;2;0)
> but I have to manually edit the first paramenter:
> =VLOOKUP(K2;'City Abbreviations'.$D$1:$E$1039;2;0)
>
> IMHO, the function wizard should have made the array (the second parameter)
> absolute addresses instead of relative. In fact, there may be more
> functions should be made absolute upon function creation by the Autopilot.
> I think Excel does this by putting in a '!' before the address.
No, Excel uses the exclamation mark as separator between sheet and cell
address.
> Also, you can't select a column heading to define a table array - your
> forced to highlight all the cells with your mouse. And if I have a lot of
> rows, that takes a while.
You mean, from a running dialog? -> Planned for OOo 2.0:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=7164
> Paste Special:
> 1. Where is Paste Special -> Values Only. A cell with =LEN(A2) has a value
> of, say, 10. How can I paste that number 10 in another cell? Also the
> "Paste All" check box needs to only gray the dependant checkboxes, no sense
> in graying out "Strings, Notes, Objects, etc.". Let the user still be able
> to read the choices.
>
> Typing:
> 1. Shift-Backspace should still backspace. I get an ulcer from this one. ;-)
>
>
> Columns:
> 1. By highlighting an entire column, you can not SHIFT-drag the column and
> place it in between other columns. Arranging the order of the columns I
> need is difficult without SHIFT-dragging.
>
> Rows:
> 1. Freeze Titles (aka. lock titles). I think another way to freeze a title
> rows is that if the user selects ROWS 1 thru X, then you get a right-click
> option to freeze the title row(s) you actually select. No need to train
> user that you must select a cell below and to the right. 99% time, you want
> to freeze ROW 1. So if the entire ROW 1 is selected, can't we just freeze
> it? I think both methods can happily co-exist.
Nice idea.
[...]
Regards
Daniel
Sander Vesik
> On Wed, Nov 26, 2003 at 03:30:12PM +0000, Sander Vesik wrote:
>
>>Eric Wood wrote:
>>
>>>I maintain a city/state/zip association file consisting of about 48,000
>>>rows. I do basic cell formatting, vlookups, functions to transform text,
>>>sorting, saving, creating & deleting several work sheets, etc. Below are a
>>>list of problems and short-commings when using Calc for spreadsheet work I
>>>typically do in Excel. The issues are not highly specific to me - meaning I
>>>think everyone that does spreadsheets for a living would benefit from a
>>>little bit of polishing. Therefor, I'm putting up a $1000.00 (US) bounty
>>>to
>>>have all these issues (which give me ulcers) axed.
>>>
>>
>>Just IMHO - this is a failrly extensive list, you sahould consider
>>splitting it up into a number of subbounties.
>
>
>
> Good idea.
>
> No single person would likely do the whole thing. If you have several
> subbounties one would, in theory, have several people working at the same
> time on different bounties.
>
> Furthermore, other interested parties can contribute to some of the sub
> bounties. Like say, I have $300 to burn (I don't) I can add them to the
> 35,000-row-limit bounty to make that bounty juicier.
>
IMO bountying the the 32000 row limit would be silly...
>
> Speaking of which, who much will you pay for a filter for the BibTeX file
> format? ;-) (note: that's what I'm working on).
>
Me? Nothing. I don't use BibTex :P
> Cheers,
Joost Andrae
an addition to what Daniel Renz said:
AFAIK and in contrary to Excel the exclamation mark is used in Calc as a=
n=20
intersection operator.
Regards, Joost
> >
> > IMHO, the function wizard should have made the array (the second=20=
parameter)
> > absolute addresses instead of relative. In fact, there may be more=
> > functions should be made absolute upon function creation by the=20
Autopilot.
> > I think Excel does this by putting in a '!' before the address.
> No, Excel uses the exclamation mark as separator between sheet and cel=
l
> address.
Niklas Nebel
> I maintain a city/state/zip association file consisting of about 48,000
> rows. I do basic cell formatting, vlookups, functions to transform text,
> sorting, saving, creating & deleting several work sheets, etc. Below are a
> list of problems and short-commings when using Calc for spreadsheet work I
> typically do in Excel. The issues are not highly specific to me - meaning I
> think everyone that does spreadsheets for a living would benefit from a
> little bit of polishing. Therefor, I'm putting up a $1000.00 (US) bounty to
> have all these issues (which give me ulcers) axed.
You should submit enhancement issues in IssueZilla where they don't
exist yet, so there's a way of tracking the different things.
Some more comments in addition to what has already been posted:
> Paste Special:
> 1. Where is Paste Special -> Values Only. A cell with =LEN(A2) has a value
> of, say, 10. How can I paste that number 10 in another cell? Also the
> "Paste All" check box needs to only gray the dependant checkboxes, no sense
> in graying out "Strings, Notes, Objects, etc.". Let the user still be able
> to read the choices.
Check all but formulas. This will paste formula results.
> Columns:
> 1. By highlighting an entire column, you can not SHIFT-drag the column and
> place it in between other columns. Arranging the order of the columns I
> need is difficult without SHIFT-dragging.
This has been suggested before, but it conflicts with general drag&drop
handling, where shift is for move (i.e. "don't copy"). What we really
need here is a different user interface for it, like a menu entry to
exchange two selections, or something similar.
> Objects:
> 1. Positioning an object (say clipart) with the arrow keys seems to move the
> object by predetermined units. I typically would expect a CTRL-ARROW KEY
> behavior which would allow me to position the object 1 pixel at a time.
Alt-arrow does this.
Niklas
Carlos C. Gonzalez
you ask for and that someone collects the bounty....
Carlos
Eric Wood
>> Paste Special:
>> 1. Where is Paste Special -> Values Only. A cell with =LEN(A2) has
Um, I though I tried that several times, I'm going to see if I can reproduce
it as a bug then....
>> behavior which would allow me to position the object
>> 1 pixel at a time.
>
> Alt-arrow does this.
Thought I tried that too, thanks.
-eric wood
Giuseppe Bilotta
> IMO bountying the the 32000 row limit would be silly...
Why?
> Me? Nothing. I don't use BibTex :P
Yes, one can see that, since it's spelt BibTeX ;)
--
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta
Sander Vesik
> Wednesday, November 26, 2003 Sander Vesik wrote:
>
>
>
>>IMO bountying the the 32000 row limit would be silly...
>
>
> Why?
>
beccasue it will happen anyways?
>
>>Me? Nothing. I don't use BibTex :P
>
>
> Yes, one can see that, since it's spelt BibTeX ;)
>
StuDly capitalisation is silly. *MUCH* sillier than MarketingCaps
Sander Vesik
>
> A comment which reveals a certain ignorance of the topic, if
> you allow me. TeX is capitalized like that because the last
> letter is not an ics but a greek 'chi' (it's tau epsilon chi,
> root of words such as tekné, which means both technique and
> art). BibTeX is hence capitalized like that because it's
> "Bibliography for TeX" (actually for LaTeX (which means
> Lamport's TeX) but let's not be distracted by this. It has
> nothing to do with either studliness nor marketing :)
>
Yes, I have heard the supposed explanation a thousand times - but then
how come people continue spelling it with X andnot the coorect unicode
letter? :P
ian
> Wednesday, November 26, 2003 Sander Vesik wrote:
> > Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
> >> Wednesday, November 26, 2003 Sander Vesik wrote:
> >>
> >>>IMO bountying the the 32000 row limit would be silly...
> >>
> >> Why?
> > beccasue it will happen anyways?
> Good point :)
>=20
> >>>Me? Nothing. I don't use BibTex :P
> >> Yes, one can see that, since it's spelt BibTeX ;)
> > StuDly capitalisation is silly. *MUCH* sillier than MarketingCaps
> A comment which reveals a certain ignorance of the topic, if
> you allow me. TeX is capitalized like that because the last
> letter is not an ics but a greek 'chi' (it's tau epsilon chi,
> art). BibTeX is hence capitalized like that because it's
> "Bibliography for TeX" (actually for LaTeX (which means
> Lamport's TeX)
Well knock me down with a feather, you learn something new every day ;-)
--=20
ian <ian.l...@ntlworld.com>
Eric Wood
>>>>IMO bountying the the 32000 row limit would be silly...
>>> Why?
I've known this has been in the works a long time. So I'm not influencing
anything here. But, its a stipulation (insurance if you will) to ensure it
to happen before the bounty is paid! ;-)
I'm more concerned with delimited text file imports happening.
-eric wood
Sander Vesik
> ----- Original Message -----
>
>>>>>IMO bountying the the 32000 row limit would be silly...
>>>>
>>>>Why?
>>>
>>>beccasue it will happen anyways?
>>
>>Good point :)
>
>
> I've known this has been in the works a long time. So I'm not influencing
> anything here. But, its a stipulation (insurance if you will) to ensure it
> to happen before the bounty is paid! ;-)
>
> I'm more concerned with delimited text file imports happening.
i'm not sure if the row extension developers could accept their part of
the money. comapnmies are sometimes funny when it comes to their
emplyees accpting money from others.
Louis Suarez-Potts
all
>you ask for and that someone collects the bounty....
A while ago, OOo was considering having an Incubator project that would
host such postings: job offers. How do people feel about listing such
things, if not by us, then by others?
louis
>
>Carlos
>
--
Louis Suarez-Potts
Community Manager
OpenOffice.org
Edward Buck
Long time no see. :-) Yes, I'm back on the lists after a little break.
Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
> A while ago, OOo was considering having an Incubator project that would
> host such postings: job offers. How do people feel about listing such
> things, if not by us, then by others?
Sounds good to me. I'm assuming you're talking about a page for
putting up offers to code? $100 for this macro, $1000 for this
bugfix, etc.?
Not sure how many people are willing to put up cash offers of this
kind but it could actually have the effect of bringing more developers
into the project. Everyone has a threshold for becoming a mercenary.
Ed
Louis Suarez-Potts
>Hey Louis,
>
>Long time no see. :-) Yes, I'm back on the lists after a little break.
Glad to have you back.
>
>Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
>> A while ago, OOo was considering having an Incubator project that would
>> host such postings: job offers. How do people feel about listing such
>> things, if not by us, then by others?
>
>Sounds good to me. I'm assuming you're talking about a page for
>putting up offers to code? $100 for this macro, $1000 for this
>bugfix, etc.?
yes.
>
>Not sure how many people are willing to put up cash offers of this
>kind but it could actually have the effect of bringing more developers
>into the project. Everyone has a threshold for becoming a mercenary.
Well, let's think of companies, besides the present instance. Say that
company A wants OOo but OOo's lack of a grammar checker is a showstopper.
They consider Microsoft but licensing would cost, ultimately, hundreds of
thousands of dollars. They think seriously about StarOffice, but want to
brand the application with their name, as well as add their own proprietary
clipart. Or whatever. So, they choose OOo and reason that even if they
allocate, oh, say 10,000 for building a grammar checker, they are still
coming out ahead. Further, because it is open source, the code donated to
the project will act as a capital investment and will improve as more
people work on it.
If we don't list this, I do think it is reasonable for others to do it for
us, then.
best
Louis
Giuseppe Bilotta
> Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
>>=20
>> A comment which reveals a certain ignorance of the topic, if
>> you allow me. TeX is capitalized like that because the last
>> letter is not an ics but a greek 'chi' (it's tau epsilon chi,
>> root of words such as tekn=E9, which means both technique and
>> art). BibTeX is hence capitalized like that because it's
>> "Bibliography for TeX" (actually for LaTeX (which means
>> Lamport's TeX) but let's not be distracted by this. It has
>> nothing to do with either studliness nor marketing :)
> Yes, I have heard the supposed explanation a thousand times - but then
> how come people continue spelling it with X andnot the coorect unicode
> letter? :P
Because the name was set way before UNICODE existed (we're
talking about the late '70s, early '80s) and Knuth has issued
no update of the request on how to spell the name of the
program in ASCII context.
And while we're at it, remember it's pronounced 'tech' with
something like the German 'ch' in 'ich', and not 'tex' as in
'tex-mex' :)
--=20
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta
Eike Rathke
On Wed, Nov 26, 2003 at 22:54:20 -0500, Eric Wood wrote:
> > i'm not sure if the row extension developers could accept their part of
> > the money. comapnmies are sometimes funny when it comes to their
> > emplyees accpting money from others.
>
> I never met a person that turned down money. Not even my 2 year old! ;-)
It has nothing to do with turning down money. Being a Sun employee
working right on that feature anyways, I'm simply not allowed to take
money for it from a third party. Business conduct.
To not make the originator of the bounty feel bad ;) he might think
about donating the same amount of money to some aid organization
supporting children in Africa. I'd happily embrace this.
Eike
--
OOo/SO Calc core developer. Number formatter bedevilled I18N transpositionizer.
GnuPG key 0x293C05FD: 997A 4C60 CE41 0149 0DB3 9E96 2F1A D073 293C 05FD
Colin Charles
> >>IMO bountying the the 32000 row limit would be silly...
> >
> >
> > Why?
> >
>
> beccasue it will happen anyways?
http://sc.openoffice.org/row-limit.html
expect a change by erm, april-june 2004 by the looks of the timeline.
notice how we aim for 64k rows (and greater)? ;-)
--
Colin Charles, by...@aeon.com.my
OpenOffice.org Unofficial FAQ:
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