Petition for openoffice.calc merge range issue

kstan · 10-31-2008, 12:03 PM

Hi,
I'd start a petition for openoffice calc so that it can solve merged range can't insert/delete row issue. Please sign and give full support so that we can have better openoffice at future.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/oocalc_mergerange/

Regards,
Ks Tan

amani · 10-31-2008, 12:17 PM

If some people want such a feature, they can always sponsor a fork or integrate it as an optional feature. You should try to get a developer to implement it. Was this request ever discussed in their developers/users mailing list?

kstan · 10-31-2008, 12:22 PM

yes,this story in the list long time ago but no any progress right now. Unfortunately I don't have such huge budget to donate into this project. Probably we can collect some money in the petition and donate to the development team ha?

pixellany · 10-31-2008, 01:59 PM

Ummmm.....OpenOffice.org has tools in place for requesting new features. If I were in their shoes, I would reject/ignore your petition and tell you to use the established system.

kstan · 10-31-2008, 11:02 PM

Its understood for those expert didn't care about this problem because they know how to use alternative way.
However, to help those user who are not familiar with computer, there really need it. I'm did conduct this training and I deal with quite a lot of end users. Their feed back is they become idiot because of they can't do proper format in spreadsheet(Or they wasting a lot of time).Just imaging those user who have no chance to attend the openoffice training, they will choose to use pirated Ms. Excel insdeed of calc.

In my opinion, software develop for helping people, when a lot of end user need this function why don't fix for them?

I'm not a good programmer, however I did a deep research between openoffice spreadsheet and excel, found most obvious limitation for calc is this issue. When it can be solve not only openoffice market will increase, Linux market will dramatically increase as well.

Hope for those friend here saw this topic please sign at the petition(and distribute the link to your friend), this is the best way I can do for openoffice, linux, and end users.
Please, sign the petition!

Click here
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/oocalc_mergerange/

salasi · 11-01-2008, 05:16 AM

I have no idea whether this is worthwhile or not; I haven't been able to be sure what issue you are referring exactly and while that stays the case I certainly won't sign a petition.

I can only guess whether the OO developers have understood exactly the issue you are referring to, but, if you haven't been clear to them, there will be no chance of them solving your issue (but, they might make a mistake and solve someone else's issue).

Quote:

Originally Posted by kstan

Hi,
I'd start a petition for openoffice calc so that it can solve merged range can't insert/delete row issue.

I don't think you can be referring to the solver; that has only come into being in OO 3 and if you meant an issue that only applied to OO 3, you'd have said so, right?

So, probably, you mean something to do with merging a range of cells that covers more than one row, and that when you select any group of columns that intersects with the merged range you cannot then insert or delete a column across that merged range.

If this is what you mean, the method of unmerging, inserting/deleting, remerging has always worked for me, but I could see that it would become tedious if you had a spreadsheet with many merged regions and you frequently had to do this.

Curing this issue might be difficult; if you do have the software do something automatically, I'm not sure what you do when the user decides to subsequently delete something having once inserted. You'd probably need to remember what happened and in which order and it may not be possible to store that information in all the supported file formats (and having it work sometimes and not others could cause as much user confusion as the problem itself).

kstan · 11-01-2008, 06:24 AM

Hi salasi, please read below.

Quote:

Originally Posted by salasi

I have no idea whether this is worthwhile or not; I haven't been able to be sure what issue you are referring exactly and while that stays the case I certainly won't sign a petition.

I can only guess whether the OO developers have understood exactly the issue you are referring to, but, if you haven't been clear to them, there will be no chance of them solving your issue (but, they might make a mistake and solve someone else's issue).
They know this issue, since version 1. I don't know how long it will solve it. Probably untill version 4,5,6 the problem still there. I guess the best way I can help is let development team know people want it.

I don't think you can be referring to the solver; that has only come into being in OO 3 and if you meant an issue that only applied to OO 3, you'd have said so, right?

So, probably, you mean something to do with merging a range of cells that covers more than one row, and that when you select any group of columns that intersects with the merged range you cannot then insert or delete a column across that merged range.
Yes, I mean it.

If this is what you mean, the method of unmerging, inserting/deleting, remerging has always worked for me, but I could see that it would become tedious if you had a spreadsheet with many merged regions and you frequently had to do this.
Yes, you know the problem. For most of spreadsheet user, it is ridiculous!

Curing this issue might be difficult; if you do have the software do something automatically, I'm not sure what you do when the user decides to subsequently delete something having once inserted. You'd probably need to remember what happened and in which order and it may not be possible to store that information in all the supported file formats (and having it work sometimes and not others could cause as much user confusion as the problem itself).
I guess this is not a issue, because of calc store merge range well. The only problem exist is how to automate unmerge detected range, remove column, and remerge it.

pixellany · 11-01-2008, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kstan

Please, sign the petition!

NO, I will not sign it. Did you read my other post?

kstan · 11-01-2008, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixellany

NO, I will not sign it. Did you read my other post?

It's ok, it I read your previous post carefully. However that place is not a good place for petition. Especially it need more step to create new user, login, at etc.

Sad to say that I get negative feed back in this forum. Probably I need to post the topic to another place.

Just wanna to say, at the end we just want openoffice become better and more user friendly.

Software is use for helping people right?
Anyway, thanks for all comment and feed back.

pixellany · 11-01-2008, 10:53 AM

kstan;

When someone suggests that something is not a good idea, you should not take it personally. From the above, you apparently did not understand my comments.

I encourage you to lobby for changes to OpenOffice. The whole point is that---because they have an established system for submitting change requests, they will almost certainly ignore your petition.

Good luck to you....

amani · 11-01-2008, 11:02 AM

I am very good at R, so I do not use spreadsheets. But how does Gnumeric compare on the issue?

I think it is better than OoCalc in many ways.

kstan · 11-02-2008, 04:11 AM

Hi Pixellany,
As I mentioned early, their existing system is no suitable for petition. However, I'd start the development myself from yesterday.

Hi amani,
The gnumeric function is worst. It not allow me to select single column when the range is merged.

Anyway, wish me good luck in my development. I saw the programming logic already. Probably within 1-2 week I can have some preview output.

Regards,
Ks Tan

salasi · 11-02-2008, 07:04 AM

Quote:

I can only guess whether the OO developers have understood exactly the issue you are referring to, but, if you haven't been clear to them, there will be no chance of them solving your issue (but, they might make a mistake and solve someone else's issue).
They know this issue, since version 1. I don't know how long it will solve it. Probably untill version 4,5,6 the problem still there. I guess the best way I can help is let development team know people want it.

Again, you miss the point. I haven't been able to assure myself that I have understood what you mean. I do not know whether the OO developers have understood what you mean because you have not explained it well and when this has been questioned you have blamed the OO developers for taking no notice. This does not address the question.

You might also have noticed that the way that you have formatted you text doesn't really work for anyone keeping up to date with the ascii feed from the LQ thread update; this seems to be symptomatic of someone not paying enough attention to whether what they write is clear.

Quote:

I guess this is not a issue, because of calc store merge range well.

This comment is irrelevant. Again you have failed to understand, or discuss the actual objection, but have gone off at a tangent.

Quote:

Sad to say that I get negative feed back in this forum. Probably I need to post the topic to another place.

If you mean a place where people don't really want to know what you are suggesting before they sign up to your petition and don't care whether your replies are replies to the questions asked, I don't know what the value of that would be. You might get more signatures, but its unlikely that those signatures would make the success of your petition more likely. Being clear about what you are asking for, being able to state clearly what the advantages would be, being able to answer objections rationally just might.

pixellany · 11-02-2008, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kstan

Hi Pixellany,
As I mentioned early, their existing system is no suitable for petition.

Perhaps we are having semantics issues....the point was that their system is the equivalent of a petition.

More importantly, because they have an existing system, they will almost certainly ignore anything that does not use it.

pixellany · 11-02-2008, 07:27 AM

This is no longer a Linux technical discussion---I think it's time to close.....