Hi
Recently I fixed a bad 9 year old bug #60307 with at least 6 duplicates
[and still broken in at least LO 4.2.8.2 :-)], now allowing searching for
cells by the value displayed after formatting (eg. 30/11/2015 formatted
into "30 November 2015" can be found when you search for "November" with
"Search in" set to "Values"). Also through repeated failures until I copied
how Writer already does it, today also fixed #35093, an infamous 11 year
old 15 vote issue in Calc ("Current selection only" should automatically be
checked if the "Find & Replace" dialog is opened with cells already
selected; since users expect this from other spreadsheets and the option is
invisible by default, it can cause wrong cells to change when doing
"Replace").
Now I am wondering what other enhancements to that dialog would be good to
make while it's fresh in my mind. Some ideas from Bugzilla:
Visibility of options. In a comment on #87032 it is suggested the dialog
should always be expanded so all options are visible, but #39453 is all
about trying to shrink it as it hides cells under it. #39453 was filed in
2004 when monitors were smaller and had lower resolutions, so dialog size
mattered more, but small devices are becoming ubiquitous today too. If the
dialog should remain expandable, which options should be visible with it
contracted? Comments in #35093 propose including "Current selection only"
and "Regular expressions", although I think the "Search in" is far more
commonly used than "Regular expressions".
Search in what? #106857 wants the default to be "Values" instead of the
current "Formulas", but Excel (2007) uses "Formulas", so it might surprise
users even though it is more natural.
Columns or rows? #106857 again wants "Columns" as default even though Excel
(2007) has rows.
Use the value of the cell under the cursor as the find text? #73544 asks
for this. Calc currently uses the last value searched for instead, as does
Excel (2007). Instead of the cell under the cursor, we could use a single
selected cell instead: it is rather hard to select only 1 cell by accident
(with the cursor on it, you have to Ctrl+Click it or Shift+Right+Left), and
you wouldn't need to search just 1 cell, so I think it's safe to treat a
single selected cell as the find text. Another AOO innovation?
Selection during the dialog? If cells are selected during the dialog,
should we automatically check the "Current selection only" box? We
currently uncheck it and gray it out if cells are deselected during the
dialog, but only enable it without checking it if cells are selected again.
Excel (2007) doesn't even have this option: if cells are selected only they
will be searched/replaced, if no cells are selected all will be. If we want
to copy Excel's behaviour then we should check it on reselection. But
Writer doesn't do that for multi-line text selections either, so it should
probably be changed too (and other apps?).
Any other proposals? Should we ask our current users what they want (how?)?
Thank you
Damjan
