Issue 65086

Summary: Cell cut does not display a dialog like that displayed for cell delete
Product: Calc Reporter: burgesspa <philip.burgess.pb1>
Component: uiAssignee: AOO issues mailing list <issues>
Status: CONFIRMED --- QA Contact:
Severity: Trivial    
Priority: P3 CC: gerhard.schaber, issues
Version: OOo 2.0.2   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: PC   
OS: Windows XP   
Issue Type: ENHANCEMENT Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---

Description burgesspa 2006-05-04 15:04:00 UTC
Cell cut does not display a dialog like that displayed for cell delete

A cut from a cell (or cells) deletes the named style of a cell and sets it to
the "Default" style. This is inconsistent with a delete of a cell which provides
a dialog box which allows the user to choose what is deleted. (The dialog box
includes the option "formats" which covers manually added formatting as well as
any named style assigned to the cell.)

I would like either:
1: DEL and CUT to both provide a dialog box so one can choose what is deleted.
2: A global option so that the style names of cells are not changed by DEL or CUT.

For me 2 is better. For instance if I define a calc template with all the styles
set up nicely, if anyone wants to cut some contents from one part to another,
the cells from which the content was cut are now in the style "default" forcing
the user to change the style back to what is wanted.

Workaround
Select the cells to be cut, do the cut, do a paste again, then do a DEL,
un-check "delete all" and "formats", and OK.


Issue reproduction procedure
Test 1
1. Open an empty calc file
2. Enter some text to the cell A1
3. Change the style of the cell to "Heading 1", move to next cell
4. Go back to the cell and press DEL.
5. In the dialog box which appears, select "delete all", and press OK - result:
A (see expected and actual results below)

Test 2
6. Enter some text to the cell A1
7. Change the style of the cell to "Heading 1", move to next cell
8. Go back to the cell and do a CUT. - result: B

Test 3
10. Enter some text to the cell A1
11. Change the style of the cell to "Heading 1", move to next cell
12. Go back to the cell and press DEL.
13. In the dialog box which appears, un-check "delete all", and "formats", and
press OK
14. Enter some text into the cell A1 - result: C

Expected results
A. Delete deletes the cell contents and attributes according to the options
selected in the dialog box.
B. Cut deletes the cell contents like "delete".
C: Delete deletes the cell contents but leaves formats unchanged

Actual results
A. As expected.
B. Cut deletes the cell contents without providing a dialog box, and then
proceeds to delete all the contents of the cell including formats by setting the
style to Default.
C: As expected.

This might be a similar to issues 8461, 8454, 8560
Comment 1 frank 2006-07-03 10:23:41 UTC
Hi,

not a defect as Cut and delete are different operations. Del erases parts or all
of the cell content, cut copys all of the cell into the clipboard and than
erases the content from the cell.

If you just want to remove a style or the cell formatting, just assign the
default style to the cell or the one you want to use.

Frank
Comment 2 frank 2006-07-03 10:24:10 UTC
closed invalid
Comment 3 burgesspa 2006-07-03 14:44:58 UTC
You seem to have misunderstood the issue: "If you just want to remove a style or
the cell formatting ...".

I want to KEEP the style formatting when doing a cut. Delete provides a dialog
box so I can choose to keep the style. But cut does not provide the choice.

I see someone has voted for this issue, so I suppose there are other persons who
find this annoying.

Here is another way to look at the issue. If I set up a spreadsheet using the
nice Ooo style defining facilities to define nice fonts, character sizes, number
of decimal places for numbers etc. etc., why should I want to remove the style
definition from a cell when I do a cut and have it set to "Default"? I usually
just want to move cell contents (i.e. the numbers or equations) from one place
to another. I ALWAYS want the source cells to keep their defined styles. If I
want to change the style of the cell then I would do exactly that: change the
style. 

If the Ooo cut function continues to do a style delete then to me I see no point
in having the nice style defintion functionality which is a part of Calc, since
everytime a user does a cut they will have to define the style again of the
cell, or will have to do the proposed workaround: cut then paste then delete.

I took a new look at Excel (version 2002 (10)), and yes Cut also deletes the
defined style, and sets it to "Normal". But then as far as I know I cannot
define new styles in Excel, I have to change one of the existing styles such as
Normal, so it is much less powerful than Calc. So Calc needs an appropriate cut
function to complement this power. In Excel I do not notice the issue because I
am stuck with a fixed set of styles. Also Excel is different from Ooo in that it
does not display a dialog box when deleting a cell, it just does the delete.

So if in your specification it says that Calc must clone the functions of Excel,
then I suggest this issue is changed to an enhancement. 

Proposal for enhancement: 

1) The cut/copy/delete functions should all give a dialog like the delete
function so I can choose what is cut/copied/deleted from the cell. When the data
is pasted again it should only paste what was included. e.g. if the styles were
not included then the paste will not change the style of the destination cells. 

2) I should be able to configure a default selection of elements to include so
that the cut/copy/delete function does not display a dialog box. I personally
would configure it never to include styles in the copy, so they are neither
changed when a cut or delete is performed nor when something is pasted.

3) as a general rule I would prefer that only content is copied/pasted and not
the cell style.
Comment 4 frank 2006-07-03 14:49:15 UTC
Ok, let's requirements decide.

Frank
Comment 5 schaber 2006-07-04 13:34:05 UTC
Yes, please provide at least one of the three proposed solutions. The current
behaviour can be annoying. If you do not want to lose the style of a cell
(including conditional formatting), you currently need to copy the cell, delete
it, and then paste it somewhere else. You cannot use the cut command at all in
this case.

Best regards,

Gerhard
Comment 6 schaber 2006-07-04 13:49:59 UTC
BTW, another issue regarding cut and paste is 28411.