Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 18748
At autocompletion TAB-key-use no longer leads to cell travel
Last modified: 2015-12-17 08:02:23 UTC
This is not only in 1.1 RC3, but also in previous versions. When I type something in a cell and press the TAB key, the cell on the right side of the active cell becomes active. Now when I type something similar in that cell Calc want's to autocomplete it. This is a nice feature, but at that point, I can't use the TAB key anymore to go one cell to the right. Instead, the TAB key is used to select the different autocomplete possibilities. This is very unhandy, because one gets used to using the TAB key for navigating the spreadsheet. So please, let the TAB key only be used for activating the cell on the right of the active cell and use another key for toggling the autocomplete possibilities. (contrl+tab perhaps?)
I can confirm the reported behavior, but is it a bug or should it be an RFE? You can disable AutoComplete using Tools > Cell Contents > uncheck AutoInput. Tam
This should be a RFE => type changed
@Tamblyne: I know I can disable the autocomplete feature, but I don't want to, because it's a nice feature. It just doesn't work with the right keys. Why is the target milestone set to OOo later? Can't this be done sooner?
Hi, it's me again. I have done some expirementing on this in Writer. There, to scroll through the different Autocomplete features, Cntrl+TAB is used. I think this is another reason to change this behaviour in Calc.
I agree. The behaviour in Calc should be the same as in Writer; there is no good reason to keep it the way it is now.
reset target back to OOo later.
This is a duplicate issue of #14057 http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=14057 However, this issue has a better description of the problem and a reasonable solution. Suggest that 14057 be closed as a duplicate Thanks.
Additionally - Since this uses <tab>, and since <tab> is an unavailable key in the shortcut key dialog, this is one of the few (only?) keybindings that are not user configurable. As a regular user of Excel, I have years of using the tab key to accept auto-completes. This will be a regular and annoying interruption in my daily use until either I retrain myself, or it is changed. (I suspect I may never completely retrain myself) I'm hoping that while this issue may not be movable to a target sooner than 'Later', maybe we could move it up in priority from P3 to P2 or even P1 as this is a usability / 'making the switch painless / invisible' type of issue Thanks
*** Issue 14057 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Summary: At autocompletion TAB-key use no longer leads to cell travel. Set issue started.
please have a look at Issue 7566 Frank
Hi Frank, Issue 7566 was closed with reason that it is an implemented feature. However this issue can be considered as an enhancement to that feature. I think this feature should at least work in the same way as it does in Writer. There ctrl+tab is used to switch between the various autocompletion suggestions. Besides that, the way this features works right now in Calc, it prevents another feature from working correctly, namely jumping one cell to the right when the tab key is pressed. Disabling the autocompletion would be a wast of a great feature.
*** Issue 1127 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
copying comments from issue 1127: ------- Additional comments from oc Thu Jun 28 01:32:08 -0700 2001 ------- To enter something into cells from left to right you could change the behaviour of the entrymethod (TOOLS-OPTIONS-SPREADSHEET-GENERAL-PRESS ENTER TO MOVE SELECTION) from down to right. But I agree that a tab should accept the autocompletion =>Enhancement ------- Additional comments from ft Mon Oct 6 03:08:20 -0700 2003 ------- Add <TAB> to the list of "TOOLS-OPTIONS-SPREADSHEET-GENERAL-PRESS ENTER TO MOVE SELECTION" dopd down list. Do make only an option, not default.
I really appreciate the effort, but I'm still confinced this going the wrong way. The solution that is given now, creates a new problem: When I set the option that pressing enter selects the cell to the right, how am I going to select the cell down? Ofcourse by pressing the arrow down button...... I find that not a satisfactory answer. It's great that people are thinking about solutions for an enhancement, but please explain to me why it shouldn't work the same way as in Writer. I still believe that is the most logical thing to do.
This issue is open now for 2,5 years. Does anyone have an update?
.
Created attachment 35739 [details] A Simple patch to solve this problem.
any update? [any body reviewing my patch?]
Hi Niklas, please have a look at the patch. Frank
Now this is one of the cases where a patch, even if correct, doesn't really add any value. Once there is agreement about changing the AutoInput "next entry" key from Tab to Ctrl-Tab, the actual change is trivial with or without a patch. The patch only leads to the expectation that the "agreement" step could somehow be bypassed. But that's not how things should work.
Hi, Can we try to agree on the best solution then? Options: - no change, i.e. in some cases Tab is used to move to next cell, in other cases for autocompletion, which is confusing and annoying. - keep Tab for autocomplete, use some other key to move to next cell (apparently this is comparable to MS Excel; in this case which key is used for the moving?) - keep Tab for moving to next cell and Ctrl+tab for autocompletion selection (this is comparable to OOo Writer) I think the last option is the best.
So - perhaps we can do some competitive review / get User Experience input here ? re-assigned to mmp (is that right ?)
SimonBr - In Excel it is TAB to accept the autocomplete, then TAB again to move to the next cell. (The key difference in behavior is due to the fact that OO offers a NEW feature, selecting between multiple autocomplete choices - The NEW behavior should get the New keybinding) TAB to move TAB to accept the highlighted autocomplete offered word. TAB Again to Move. CTRL TAB to move highlighting to a different autocomplete offered word. TAB to accept the highlighted autocomplete word. TAB Again to move. The above description of behavior is BOTH consistent with current Excel Users expectations, AND offers them new features. The Win Win Solution. NN - Who skipped the agreement step? The issue was accepted. The issue has 15 votes. The issue is that after or at auto completion... I have to use a different key combination than Excel. Why do we need discussion to about the agreement that has already been reached that OO cannot currently behave like Excel? I don't Give a flying porcupine about what the default behavior is (I assume there are enough folks on the like excel different from excel bandwagons - please fight that battle somewhere else over a feature I don't need). What I need is an option flag to cause this ability.. hence I need this ability. I don't care how you implement it, as long as I can be at a customers office, download OO (not compile - just download and install), and change the default behavior to be "Like Excel" through 1 or 25 option choices. Until this functionality is included in OO, I can't do that. (PS I don't want to turn off autocomplete. I just want it to work like Excel) Everyone - On the issue of comparability to Writer.... I'm not sure what the behavior in writer is. I haven't tried it, and don't really care. The goal of OO is to provide a free open source solution/replacement for MSOffice. Writer is a a Writer Program. Calc is a Spreadsheet/Flat File database program. The behavior can be different between Writer/Calc because the tool is different. The behavior between Calc/Excel should be the same because the tool is the same (Hammer/Hammer) Yes I admit I'm in a bad mood this morning that has nothing to do with this. The flurry of activity that ends with a request for a user experience review after years of waiting for a fix to the issue just added to it. SO please, Take my harshness with the appropriate grain of salt. I'm normally much nicer than this. Cheers Kevin
Err - I was in error. TAB a single time in Excel accepts the highlighted autocomplete choice and moves to the next cell. Please ignore my TAB and TAB again as a single TAB. Coffee kicking in I suppose.
nn, I agree with the rest of the guys here. Why should calc be different from writer? Lets make it consistent and the way users feel comfortable. If I was a 'user' then I would generally be using tab to move around and Ctrl+Tab to autocomplete (ctrl+tab is more difficult than tab - but how many times do u want autocomplete?) - Hence the patch. Anyway, the User Experience group wins here. thanx, muthusuba [CC'ing nn]
I will take a look -- now. Sorry for the delay and thanks Niklas for nudging me.
set target to 2.4
First of all: Great that is targeted for 2.4! Then a question: It has become unclear to me how this issue will be resolved. I saw a remark about the User Experience group winning? But what does this mean? What solution will be implemented?
First of all: Great that this issue is targeted for 2.4! Then a question: It has become unclear to me how this issue will be resolved. I saw a remark about the User Experience group winning? But what does this mean? What solution will be implemented?
I do not know the solution either. I have that a competitive analysis and comparison with similar areas (maybe tables in Writer) will reveal a good way... Matthias (User Experience, not winning)
reassign issue to fl, set target to 3.0, since mmp is not involved anymore in this project.
Issue 81213 seems related. Is there a specification of the new behaviour somewhere?
FL: New target.
This problem has worse implications now than it did before. The problem was NOT fixed in 2.4, but another problem was, making this more severe. Now "Tab" correctly "remembers" where the first cell is. You can now start on Cell "B" press tab a number of times and, say, land on Cell "M." Now, when you hit "Enter" you will go back to Cell "B," but down a row. Large repetitive amounts of data can be entered from left to right using the Tab key, and when it is time to go to the next row just hit enter, and you will be able to start again with no problems. EXCEPT since issue 18748 is still a problem, once AutoCorrect appears, Tab no longer works. You CAN hit arrow to go to the next cell, but that will mess up where the "left" cell is. Since 2.4 Tab will "remember" where the left cell is. This is an improvement which effectively changes the status of issue 18748 to a major problem.
Tab needs to accept the auto entry and move to the next cell like Excel. Some of my users are getting hung up because the tab key isn't moving them when it did in Excel. We need this to be compatible. Either it should be changed to work like Excel or we need to be able to customize it to work the way we prefer. Thanks,
Set new target: OOo 3.2
This feature clash is making it really annoying to use Calc. If I have a job that requires a lot of data entry with lots of auto-complete, I switch to Excel and later re-open in Calc. The proposed ctrl+Tab solution is elegant and seems simple. Is there a firm reason why it can't be in 3.1?
I am sorry, but I am confused with the following (johnmoody's) comments. Can someone explain? (It (the patch) seems to work properly for me). ------- Additional comments from johnmoody Fri Aug 15 22:27:57 +0000 2008 ------- This problem has worse implications now than it did before. The problem was NOT fixed in 2.4, but another problem was, making this more severe. Now "Tab" correctly "remembers" where the first cell is. You can now start on Cell "B" press tab a number of times and, say, land on Cell "M." Now, when you hit "Enter" you will go back to Cell "B," but down a row. Large repetitive amounts of data can be entered from left to right using the Tab key, and when it is time to go to the next row just hit enter, and you will be able to start again with no problems. EXCEPT since issue 18748 is still a problem, once AutoCorrect appears, Tab no longer works. You CAN hit arrow to go to the next cell, but that will mess up where the "left" cell is. Since 2.4 Tab will "remember" where the left cell is. This is an improvement which effectively changes the status of issue 18748 to a major problem.
I am from the UX team, Martin (mh) contacted us and started a thread on our discussion list. I give the reference to the people interested to join the discussion: http://ux.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgNo=2880 I do not believe that we can accept the proposed "ctrl+tab" solution as it has been proposed, for the reasons given on the UX list. We have proposed alternative solutions and the discussion goes on. We will try to reach a solution acceptable for the user and quickly implementable, letting room for future improvements. Stay tuned…
Platform should be set to "All", no?
In the discussion on ux@, there have been touched some related areas. As for this issue, agreement is that the proposed change is OK: Ctrl-Tab to cycle through the different auto complete suggestions; Tab to leave the cell as always.
In the discussion on ux@, only five person have replied, and you are the only one who think that. Sorry, but this issue is far more complex that it seems at first sight. We are still actively working on it.
>In the discussion on ux@, only five person have replied, and you are the only >one who think that. This is simply not true. There is consent about Ctrl-Tab<>Tab behaviour. And 'only' 5 people ... yes, you cannot expect that many have hours a day available for serious studying mails that way devide from the original topics. Pls try to learn to focus on a topic. >Sorry, but this issue is far more complex that it seems at first sight. We are >still actively working on it. These are the related issues I wrote about. And reading what is written about that, it is very unlikely that that will come to a reasonable outcome soon (apart from the questionm how easy to implement it might be). It is a pity this specific issue is not solved for so long time. The whole project has to work on to improve these kind of situations. Therefore it would not be a pity if the ux-project hadn't come with a opinion on this issue, and would have it waiting longer because of 'related issues'. Well, for the apr. 20 people cc-ed here: the ux-archives are available. So if you have some free weekends left ..
Adjust target.
This seems like a small thing, but for me having to take my right fingers off the home keys to reach down to the right arrow to accept an AutoInput suggestion makes AutoInput unusable. Using the tab key to accept the AutoInput suggestion would be so much easier.
> http://ux.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgNo=2880 For reference only, Nabble view of the discussion: <http://n2.nabble.com/-tp2228335p2228335.html>
Branch-date (feature- and code-freeze) for OOo 3.2 is nearly done. Therefore I change the target of this issue to OOo 3.x. If you think it is a stopper for OOo 3.2 please change the target back.
OK, so it's been over 6 years and 2 major releases since this problem was first brought up. The target completion has changed multiple times. I do not understand why what appears to be a simple change, with most posts agreeing on how to fix it, can take so long, and still not be fixed, nor even an estimated date that it will be fixed. And yes "FIX" is the appropriate term. It may not be a bug as such, but it is definitely a problem that needs fixing. Al
Created attachment 68177 [details] this patch fixes incorrect tab handling during formula input
This patch (and/or OpenOffice 3.2) has broken Auto Completion very badly for me. I use the tab / shift-tab keys very heavily to scroll through suggestions. Since upgrading to OpenOffice 3.2, I cannot even pick any suggestion other than the default given. Hitting tab / shift-tab changes cells on me, not what I expect. I've been using Open Office and this tab completion feature since the 1.x days. Ctrl-Tab / Ctrl-Shift-Tab have no affect for me. What are the new keys for cycling through the auto completion suggestions? I am very lost with out this...
@ w7feybem5gx2 3.2.0 still behaves as when this issues was written in August 2003. So I do not understand what you talk about. The patch that will change this, is not yet integrated. BTW: I do not understand why people that seem to rely so heavily on the use of key strokes, are unable to find/use arrows-, controls-, or what ever other key's ;-)
*** Issue 110597 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Is it possible to make this key (both cell movement and autocomplete key binding?) configurable instead? I guess this could help.
@cornouws Wed Mar 24 09:13:36 I can confirm what w7feybem5gx2 has added to this report - the TAB key no longer iterates through a list of matching previous cell contents which it did in 3.1. In 3.1 the sequence was: 1. Type a number of characters 2. Hit TAB until the string you want is highlighted 3. Hit a cursor key to move the the next cell Now nothing allows to select anything other than the first option in an alphabetically sorted list. Tab moves to the next right cell. Control Tab does nothing. I have tried the Ubuntu PPA build and a Sabayon 5.2 Live CD and both of their OOo 3.2 operate the same way. There seems to be no way of moving through a list of previously matching cell contents.
I'm using Calc (mostly in Windows Vista and XP) for serious business and this new problem in 3.2 version is really very annoying. I hope it will be fixed soon. At first I thought that <Tab> key was changed to <Ctrl+Tab> or something, but it is not. I don't mind if it is <Tab> or <Ctrl+Tab> - but in fact, in 3.2 is no keystroke to change auto-completing value at all.
@ dusan_zervan & rizsilverthorn Tab stil travels through the various autocomplete entries. New spreadsheet A1 Apple tree A2 Apricot tree A3 Ananas tree In A4 type A and Tab shows all entries. (OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 and 320m16 (build in the line for the next 3.2.1).
@ cornouws I've tried exactly the same steps and it is not working for me on: - Go-OO OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 OOO320m12 Build:9483, 2010-02-26 with Slovak language using Windows Vista and also XP; - OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 OOO320m12 Build:9483 with Slovak language using Linux Ubuntu 10.04. Now I've also tried OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 OOO320m12 Build:9483 with Slovak language using Windows 7 under VirtualBox and it is working there! Is it possible that Ubuntu is using Go-OO and the problem is only there? Or something is different with Windows 7? I will try to reinstall on my Windows Vista or XP from Go-OO to normal OO later today (now I must go to work) and will let you know.
@ dusan zervan: thanxs for reporting back. I work on Ubuntu as well. So there seems to be some influence in your case from the go-oo version?
This is already fixed in go-oo 3.2.1, just to let you guys know. Ctrl-tab works in 3.2.1 as intended in this bug page.
@ cornouws On my Windows Vista I've tried to uninstall Go-OO and then install OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 OOO320m12 Build:9483 with Slovak language and now it is working well! Thank you for that idea! It seems that the problem was in Go-OO only. But it is still not clear to me, why the problem appears in Ubuntu with 'default' OpenOffice 3.20 as well. Or is it 'hidden' Go-OO there? @kohei That's great! I am looking forward.
AutoInput on, in progress? Can't use tab to move. AutoInput off and editing cell? Can't use tab to move. There've obviously been patches. Sounds like sabotage to me. 6 years of broken usability? LibreOffice already does it correctly.
> LibreOffice already does it correctly. confirming, LO 3.3.0 uses (ctrl)(tab)/(ctrl)(shift)(tab) to toogle between suggestions and (tab) to accept and move to the next cell why can't we have these feature too ?
(In reply to comment #64) > > LibreOffice already does it correctly. > > confirming, LO 3.3.0 uses (ctrl)(tab)/(ctrl)(shift)(tab) to toogle > between suggestions and (tab) to accept and move to the next cell > > why can't we have these feature too ? Help me understand here. I am with kwpulliam on this [tab] issue and autofill - I want it to work just like Excel as well. Help me understand here, this has been a reported "bug" since 2003-08-27 and still is in calc? And finally, really help me understand here, I can download LiberOffice and use their build and it has no such issue? Really? I try to be loyal to movements and projects, but really, if LiberOffice works like we have been requesting, I believe I am jumping ship. Please, by all means, correct me if I am not understanding this correctly.
Just adding another BIG VOTE for fixing this problem - it is utterly bizarre that it hasn't been fixed all these years! For heavens sake, make the TAB behave the same as Excel.
I'm adding this comment to all open issues with Issue Type == PATCH. We have 220 such issues, many of them quite old. I apologize for that. We need your help in prioritizing which patches should be integrated into our next release, Apache OpenOffice 4.0. If you have submitted a patch and think it is applicable for AOO 4.0, please respond with a comment to let us know. On the other hand, if the patch is no longer relevant, please let us know that as well. If you have any general questions or want to discuss this further, please send a note to our dev mailing list: dev@openoffice.apache.org Thanks! -Rob
Well folks, it's been 10 (ten) years and 7 months since this issue was raised, and it's still not fixed in version 4.0.1 of Apache OpenOffice Calc. My doctor said I only have another 10 years to live, so now I'm wondering whether the problem will be fixed before I die.
Wow. This is ridiculous. Almost 12 years and this still isn't fixed? Considering it's something that comes up literally every time I use Calc, and spoils both the autocomplete feature and the feature where it remembers where the "left" cell is when you hit Enter, I find it to be completely mind-boggling that this has gone kind of ignored for so long. What exactly is the problem with implementing a proper fix for this, can someone explain that? I'm not even being sarcastic, seriously, I would legitimately appreciate an explanation on this. And if it's because there's a "lack of consensus" on how to fix it, just make it a configurable option, or do whatever they did in LibreOffice, or Excel, or *something*. We seem to be trying to ensure that nothing gets changed hastily or incorrectly ... by ensuring that nothing gets changed at all.
It is too bad that I have to switch back to excel to do data entry because I have to use an awkward or multiple key combination to do what should be a quick, one consistent key stroke. For me it is: open in excel -> enter new data -> open back in calc. Oddly enough that's the faster and easier method for me.
@ openoffice@kasrok.com: You may be interested to try LibreOffice, the other OpenOffice.org offspring. Has been fixed in there since it's first version. (And there is more behaviour that people appreciate from using Excel.)