Issue 30898 - Incorrect behaviour of hidden paragraph fields
Summary: Incorrect behaviour of hidden paragraph fields
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: Writer
Classification: Application
Component: code (show other issues)
Version: 680m106
Hardware: PC All
: P3 Trivial with 1 vote (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: AOO issues mailing list
QA Contact:
URL:
Keywords: needmoreinfo, oooqa
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2004-06-30 00:41 UTC by martinwhitaker
Modified: 2017-05-20 11:22 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: DEFECT
Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---


Attachments
OOwriter document demonstrating bug (5.08 KB, application/vnd.sun.xml.writer)
2004-06-30 00:43 UTC, martinwhitaker
no flags Details
OOcalc spreadsheet used as data source for demonstrating bug (5.44 KB, application/vnd.sun.xml.calc)
2004-06-30 00:44 UTC, martinwhitaker
no flags Details

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Description martinwhitaker 2004-06-30 00:41:57 UTC
As requested, I am resubmitting issue 18294 in stripped down form.

I have created as a sample data source a small spreadsheet, consisting of two
sheets, each sheet containing 3 rows by 1 column. In OOwriter add this as a new
data source using Tools->Data Sources, This gives you two data source tables,
each with 3 records of 1 column.

I have inserted this data as fields into a OOwriter document, with each data
field starting a separate paragraph of the document, giving 6 paragraphs in
total. The data in the spreadsheet is chosen so that this has the effect of
labelling the paragraphs "A" though to "F". After each data field I have added a
hidden paragraph field based on the contents of the data field and a line of
text to indicate if that paragraph should be hidden.

Open this document, make sure View->Hidden Paragraphs is not enabled, then press
F9 to update all fields. Paragraphs A and E are now hidden and the rest are
visible (this is the correct behaviour).

Press F9 again. Paragraphs A, B, and C are now hidden and the rest are visible.
Further pressing of F9 does not change the behaviour.

Press F4 to open the data source view and in the left hand pane select
sheet->Tables->Sheet1. In the right hand pane select all rows of the table then
click on the "data to fields" button in the data source view. The paragraphs
that take data from this table are now hidden correctly (i.e. paragraph A is
hidden), but the paragraphs that take data from the other table are now all visible.

Next, in the left hand pane of the data source view, select
sheet->Tables->Sheet2 then in the right hand pane select all rows of the table
and click on the "data to fields" button. The paragraphs that take data from
this table are now hidden correctly (i.e. paragraph E is hidden), but the
paragraphs that take data from the first table are now all visible.

Press F9 once and no change is made. Press F9 again and all paragraphs become
visible.

This same bug can be seen when using conditional text and hidden text fields.
Comment 1 martinwhitaker 2004-06-30 00:43:56 UTC
Created attachment 16192 [details]
OOwriter document demonstrating bug
Comment 2 martinwhitaker 2004-06-30 00:44:46 UTC
Created attachment 16193 [details]
OOcalc spreadsheet used as data source for demonstrating bug
Comment 3 Rainer Bielefeld 2004-06-30 07:20:49 UTC
Hi martinwhitaker, 

I made some first tests, and my result is, that I see different behaviour using 
OOo 1.1.1  WIN XP: [645m35(Build8762)] 
or 
OOo I 1.1.2RC3  (German) WIN XP: [645m44(Build8784)] 

"... Open this document, make sure View->Hidden Paragraphs is not enabled, then
press F9 to update all fields."
same 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 'A' and 'E' will be hidden


"Press F9 again..."
1.1.1: as you reported
1.1.2: nothing happens


"Press F4 to open the data source view ..."
1.1.1 and 1.1.2: everything as you reported

"...Press F9 once...."
1.1.1: everything as you reported
1.1.2: nothing happens

Can you please add some further information:

1. I need some more information why you think that the reaction should be in a
special way. For example concerning your first comment:
"(this is the correct behaviour)", because the condition for "hide paragraph" 
is fulfilled in line 'A' (content is "A") and line 'E' (content is "E"). So all
lines except 'A' and 'E' should be visible. I belive, that this view should
remain, even if 'F9' will be pressed again and again.

martinwhitaker, do you agree with this? Please tell me here in the issue and add
some further comments, what reactions are unexpected for you and why they are
unexpected. I need this information for discussion with developers: Is the
reaction in accordance to the aimed design, and is the actual design in
accordance to users needs?

Thanks

Rainer





Comment 4 martinwhitaker 2004-06-30 20:36:14 UTC
Hi Rainer,

At all times (unless you enable View->Hidden Paragraphs), paragraphs A and E
should be hidden and the other paragraphs should be visible. This should be true
when you first load the document, whenever you reimport the data from the data
source (unless you change the source data, in which case the conditions should
be re-evaluated according to the new data), and however many times you press F9
to update the fields. So any action that results in paragraphs A or E being
visible, or paragraphs B, C, D, or F being hidden is (in my view) showing up a
bug in the code.

With regard to your comments about different behaviour in 1.1.2RC3, the first
1.1.2RC behaved like 1.1.1, so it would seem that someone has been working on
the relevant bit of code.

Hope this has clarified the issue, please ask again if you want further
information. Thanks for taking the time to investigate this!

Martin
Comment 5 Rainer Bielefeld 2004-07-01 17:03:47 UTC
Hi Martin,

I already did some tests, and step by step I understand what happens (but it
will still take some further tests to get a clear result).

Currently I think, that in the text document we have a very unusual use of the
'mail merge fields'. I am afraid, that that function has not been designed for
that use. Can you tell some more concerning your "real" application where you
need that function for?

First I tried to print a mail merge letter, I checked with 1.1.2RC3  (German)
WIN XP: [645m44(Build8784)]. 
0. Open "document.sxw", after you established "sheet.sxc" as database
1. select 'tools - mail merge letter - from this document', 
   OOo will select sheet 2 of the data source
2. finish printout
   expected: Line 'D' and 'F' will be printed, 'E' is hidden
   actual: as expected
3. try again and again
   as expected, always Line 'D' and 'F' will be printed, 'E' is hidden
4. close document without saving

New test:
10. Open "document.sxw", after you established "sheet.sxc" as database
11. select 'tools - mail merge letter - from this document', 
    select sheet 1 of the data source manually
12. finish printout
    expected: Line 'B' and 'C' will be printed, 'A' is hidden
   actual: all 3 lines 'A' - 'C' will be printed
13. Doubleclick into the grey field in front of text "This paragraph ..." 
    in Line 'A', you find condition <sheet.Sheet2.Column1 == "E">  - oops
    in Line 'A', you find condition <sheet.Sheet2.Column1 == "E">  - oops
    in Line 'A', you find condition <sheet.Sheet2.Column1 == "E">  - oops
14. Press F9
    expected: you will see again Line 'A'  ... 'F' again
    actual: "sort order" 'A' 'C' 'A' 'B' 'C' ('E' invisible)
 
15. select 'tools - mail merge letter - from this document',
    select sheet 1 of the data source manually
16. finish printout
    expected: result like in '12.'
    actual: as expected
4. close document without saving


I believe, problems are caused by the "forbidden" use of mail merge fields of 2
data sources in 1 document (further tests will be essential), but of course,
that should at least be mentionned in HELP.

Status -> NEW

May be "database access" would be a better component, but first I would like to
hear some more opinions.

Rainer
Comment 6 martinwhitaker 2004-07-02 20:56:01 UTC
My real application is a technical document specifying the software control
interface for a range of networked equipment. The equipment is controlled using
the SNMP protocol, which maps all control operations onto simple "set" and "get"
operations on a notional tree-structured database. My document has to describe
this notional database in two ways, one as a human-friendly description (showing
the structure of the tree, and describing what happens when you "get" or "put"
any given leaf node of the tree), the other as a formal, machine-readable
specification.

The information required to do this falls into two categories, first a list of
named types, defining sets of allowed values, and second a list of tree nodes,
defining the nodes of the tree, how they are linked, and which of the named
types represents the values permitted in "set" and "get" operations on that node.

To handle this I constructed a spreadsheet both to hold the basic information,
and to construct the derived text for insertion in my document. This spreadsheet
is split into multiple sheets, partly to make it more manageable, but also
because the two categories of information require a different number of data
source fields to be inserted into the document, and because different
information about the same item needs to be inserted in two separate places in
the document.

For the formal specification, some fields represent information which is only
present for some items, so I am using the hidden paragraph functionality to hide
these fields when information is not present.

Hope this makes sense - it's not a simple thing to describe!

Regarding your comment about "database access" being a better component - I
thought that data sources were the way to extract information from a database
into an OOo document - that's certainly what I am using it for (even though my
database is in reality a spreadsheet). I am not using the mail merge tools at all.
Comment 7 eric.savary 2005-06-15 08:53:23 UTC
ES->OS: the problem seems to be as following:
- a document containing DB fields from 2 different DB tables
- for each paragraph (and there's 1 field per paragraph) there's a hidden
paragraph condition.

Now when merging the fields of Table1, the hidden paragraph fields work fine for
the Table1 fields but not for the Table2 fields. On the contrary, merging the
Table2 fields leads the hidden paragraph fields applied to the Table1 fields to
not work anymore while the hidden paragraph fields applied to the Table2 fields
work fine now.

Maybe the bug is that hidden paragraph fields cannot get updated correctly when
the document contains fields from 2 different tables...
Comment 8 ace_dent 2008-05-14 23:33:38 UTC
This Issue requires more information ('needmoreinfo'), but has not been updated
within the last year. Please re-test with one of the latest versions of OOo -
the problem(s) may already be addressed. Either use the latest stable version:
http://download.openoffice.org/index.html
or consider trying the new OOo 3 BETA (still in testing):
http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/

Please report back the outcome of your testing, so this Issue may be closed or
progressed as necessary - otherwise the issue may be Resolved as Invalid in the
future. You may also wish to search for (and note) any duplicates of this Issue
that may have progressed further :
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/query.cgi

Regards,
Andrew

Cleaning-up and Closing old Issues as part of:
~ The Grand Bug Squash, pre v3 ~
Comment 9 martinwhitaker 2008-05-15 21:36:12 UTC
This is incorrectly tagged as needmoreinfo - I have already provided the
information that was requested.

This bug is partially fixed in DEV300m10. Selecting all rows of one table in the
data source view and clicking on the "data to fields" button still affects the
visibility of hidden paragraphs related to the other data source table, but
subsequently pressing F9 corrects the visibility of all paragraphs.

Additionally, if you disconnect from the data source (so you can update the
spreadsheet) then reconnect and update the fields in the main document, all the
paragraphs become visible. The only work around is to close and reopen the document.
Comment 10 Marcus 2017-05-20 11:22:28 UTC
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".