Issue 7747 - Impossible to select all with menu 'Edit -> Select all' if document starts with Table
Summary: Impossible to select all with menu 'Edit -> Select all' if document starts wi...
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: Writer
Classification: Application
Component: code (show other issues)
Version: OOo 1.0.1
Hardware: All All
: P2 Normal with 16 votes (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: AOO issues mailing list
QA Contact:
URL:
Keywords: oooqa
: 13082 17388 17874 20847 24162 26378 31471 34428 37470 44379 46061 47684 56833 59470 59913 67693 74239 75615 75846 83304 86144 87223 88728 94378 94447 99052 99938 106716 112927 114758 115390 (view as issue list)
Depends on:
Blocks: 90729
  Show dependency tree
 
Reported: 2002-09-16 19:05 UTC by ddaniels
Modified: 2014-03-21 13:06 UTC (History)
19 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: DEFECT
Latest Confirmation in: 4.1.0-beta
Developer Difficulty: ---


Attachments
Test case for select all problem. (5.24 KB, application/octet-stream)
2002-09-17 01:48 UTC, prgmgr
no flags Details
Original file screenshot (35.88 KB, image/png)
2009-05-06 08:27 UTC, murz
no flags Details
Simple Sample (8.78 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2013-12-05 12:09 UTC, Rainer Bielefeld
no flags Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this issue.
Description ddaniels 2002-09-16 19:05:03 UTC
test case
test case one
create a text document with two or more seperate tables
select all (ctrl + a)
only one table will be selected

second test case
create a text document with two or more seperate tables
click and drag to try and select more than one table
only one table will be selected
Comment 1 prgmgr 2002-09-17 01:48:15 UTC
Dennis thanks for taking the time to post this issue.

Duplicated on Win NT 4.0 SP6a, OOo 1.0.1.

Thank you for using and supporting OOo.


Steps to reproduce this issue:

1.  Start Writer.
2.  Create a table at the top of the page.
3.  Enter some text.
4.  Create another table.

Try to select the entire document.

The problem seems to only occur if you have a table at the very 
beginning of the page.
Comment 2 prgmgr 2002-09-17 01:48:53 UTC
Created attachment 2862 [details]
Test case for select all problem.
Comment 3 ddaniels 2002-09-17 01:52:34 UTC
actually on my win98se it happens if the table is at the bottom, or in
the middle...or at the top...

try creating multiple tables and the problem will probably be reproduced

thanks
Comment 4 prgmgr 2002-10-26 04:22:11 UTC
Duplicated on Win NT 4.0 SP6a, OOo 643.
Comment 5 ddaniels 2002-12-04 05:10:02 UTC
problem still exists in 1.0.1

for fun:
create a table with a lot of stuff
then create some regular text below it
then try to select the regular text and the table by clicking and dragging
-won't work :(
Comment 6 prgmgr 2002-12-04 17:08:57 UTC
Reassign
Comment 7 h.ilter 2002-12-06 10:52:25 UTC
Reassigned to MRU
Comment 8 michael.ruess 2002-12-06 11:01:46 UTC
"Select all" does not work when a table is at the very beginning of
the document. That's an old problem (as old as Writer's tables...
sbout nine or ten years), which is not fixable. Complete redesign of
table concept will be necessary (about one year of development).
Comment 9 michael.ruess 2002-12-06 11:08:34 UTC
Now to the original problem described at th top of the issue:
Ctrl-A in a table does not mean to select "all tables". It means
"select all of the table". Do the following: place the cursor in a
table cell which has text content. Hit Ctrl-A once -> ALL text content
in the table is selected. Hit Ctrl-A again -> whole table is selected.
If hit Ctrl-A for a third time, the whole document content is selected.
That's the way Writer's "Select All" feature works.
Exception: the case I mentioned above... (not nice, but nothing to do,
sorry)
Comment 10 michael.ruess 2002-12-06 11:08:49 UTC
Closed, not a bug.
Comment 11 prgmgr 2003-07-02 19:17:34 UTC
*** Issue 13082 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 12 jensja 2003-07-27 16:01:13 UTC
*** Issue 17388 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 13 lohmaier 2003-08-05 22:32:45 UTC
*** Issue 17874 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 14 lohmaier 2003-10-08 19:46:36 UTC
*** Issue 20847 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 15 lohmaier 2004-01-07 22:32:32 UTC
*** Issue 24162 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 16 michael.ruess 2004-03-12 14:29:14 UTC
*** Issue 26378 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 17 rblackeagle 2004-03-12 17:32:19 UTC
There IS a problem here.  Selecting the entire table with either mouse movement
or using Ctrl-A, Ctrl-A works just fine.  With it selected, it can be moved,
copied or drug to a new position, however, when using drag-n-drop or Ctrl-X
(delete), we are left with a blank table.  To remove it, I have to select every
row and then use "Delete rows."

Expected behavior: Drag-n-drop should remove the table completely (no blank
table), as should Ctrl-X.  If this is not reopened, I will open a new issue for
this as an enhancement.
Comment 18 michael.ruess 2004-07-15 09:08:43 UTC
*** Issue 31471 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 19 richlv 2004-07-15 09:30:48 UTC
hmm. 
------- Additional comments from mru Fri Dec 6 04:01:46 -0700 2002 -------
... (about one year of development).

any progress ? :)

as this is closed as wontfix, i wonder - will this be fixed in 2.0 ? quite a lot 
of duplicates, seen in production environment...

ok, i'll see if i have any votes left :)
Comment 20 michael.ruess 2004-09-21 10:32:36 UTC
*** Issue 34428 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 21 michael.ruess 2004-11-23 12:58:45 UTC
*** Issue 37470 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 22 michael.ruess 2005-03-08 09:00:16 UTC
*** Issue 44379 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 23 haxwell 2005-03-15 22:25:22 UTC
I think that this issue should be fixed. It is a bug, it is functionality that 
does not work as expected and should be addressed at some point. It has been 
more than two years since this issue was first submitted. The original reason 
for not doing it was that it would take more than a year of development to fix 
it. Simply because it is hard to do is not a reason to not do it.

That said, I'm not in a position to fix it myself or get someone else to do it, 
so I leave my rant here as my vote that ignoring this known (and repeatedly 
submitted) issue is not the way to handle it.
Comment 24 eric.savary 2005-03-27 14:27:32 UTC
*** Issue 46061 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 25 eric.savary 2005-04-19 14:58:50 UTC
*** Issue 47684 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 26 michael.ruess 2005-10-28 07:27:59 UTC
*** Issue 56833 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 27 michael.ruess 2005-12-17 08:46:03 UTC
*** Issue 59470 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 28 michael.ruess 2005-12-17 08:46:35 UTC
*** Issue 59470 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 29 lohmaier 2006-01-02 12:55:43 UTC
*** Issue 59913 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 30 norbert2 2006-01-02 13:13:01 UTC
My issue 59913 has been set as duplicate of this one.

"WONTFIX" is not the right way to handle such problems. I vote for fixing this 
bug.
Comment 31 samphan 2006-01-04 05:12:51 UTC
You can't just Closed/WontFix this issue. The users found this bug all the time.
A table at the very top of a document is very common, e.g. invoices.
This make bad user experience because they don't know why they can't 'select
all' or drag to select the whole document (an error message when they try to do
so would help).
And there's no way they can fix the situation. After putting that table there,
they can't insert a paragraph before it. 
We know you have to fix it some day. Please make a decision about it and set a
target for it.
Thanks.
Comment 32 lohmaier 2006-01-04 16:31:22 UTC
Then go ahead and provide a patch/find someone willing to implement this/pay
someone to implement this.

As stated above: This is a huge effort without much gain. The few ressources
available will be used t fix other ("real") bugs. But certainly a patch will not
be rejected.

Setting "OOo PleaseHelp" target to make it easier to query for such issues.

And of course you can add a paragraph before that table. Just put your cursor to
the very first position in the very first cell and press enter. Voilà.
Comment 33 dma2002 2006-02-12 12:58:53 UTC
I think that You should fix it. It is a real bug! Why do you think that it's not
a bug?
Comment 34 michael.ruess 2006-02-13 07:40:24 UTC
We do not think that it is not a bug, but currently the effort is much too high
to justify a high priority which will prevent implementation of other important
features bugs (a crash has of course a much higher prio than this, e.g.)
Comment 35 dma2002 2006-02-13 16:45:44 UTC
So how should I understand this comment:

------- Additional comments from mru Fri Dec 6 03:08:49 -0800 2002 -------

Closed, not a bug.

?

Well, this defect is too hard to correct - I unterstand this. But this is a real
bug. So I can't understand the WONTFIX Resolution. Maybe there should by written
something else. But what?.. There is no such Resolution value to describe the
situation. :-(
Comment 36 norbert2 2006-05-26 20:38:42 UTC
""Select all" does not work when a table is at the very beginning of
the document."

This IS a real problem! WONTFIX is not a solutions; also not if it can't be
fixed very soon.
Comment 37 michael.ruess 2006-07-24 06:54:41 UTC
*** Issue 67693 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 38 anieden 2006-09-08 11:56:12 UTC
A workaround that works for me:

a) Place the cursor before the first character in the leftmost table cell of the
first table row and press Enter. You have created a paragraph before the table.

b) Hide this paragraph: Select Insert -> Fields -> Other, select the Functions
tab and select "Hidden paragraph". In the Condition box, type 1. Close the
dialog box.

Now, Ctrl-A works on the document. When converting the document to PDF, the
hidden paragraph vanishes. I guess this means that when printing the document,
the hidden paragraph will not be printed, either.

One problem that remains is the following: The hidden paragraph is displayed in
Writer itself, giving a false impression of the page layout. You can choose not
to display hidden paragraphs (deselect View -> Hidden paragraphs). But note that
at long as this setting is deselected, Ctrl-A does again not work.
Comment 39 michael.ruess 2007-02-07 07:52:25 UTC
*** Issue 74239 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 40 jjmckenzie 2007-03-06 03:31:58 UTC
Reopening issue:  Why?  Because this is a known problem.  There will be a
constant stream of discussion on this problem.  Need to know where the
appropriate code is in the sw package that is causing this problem so it can be
examined.
James McKenzie
Comment 41 michael.ruess 2007-03-06 08:31:53 UTC
ok, we will keep this issue open. But we could only change the target to
something earlier for the case someone could contribute a patch for this.
Currently WE do NOT have the resources to fix this.
Comment 42 jjmckenzie 2007-03-06 13:49:58 UTC
@mru:
Do you have an idea where this problem originates?  I can look through all of
the sw module code but I really don't feel like doing this.  I will also bring
this up on the Mac OS X porting list as a issue that needs to be corrected.  We
have an eager group of developers and would like to bring something back to the
mail program.
James McKenzie
Comment 43 jjmckenzie 2007-03-10 05:25:40 UTC
@mru:
I am going to check where and when this problem occurs and test out the
workaround. Also, this is as of right now, an issue that I alone am working on,
just to clarify this point.
James McKenzie
Comment 44 jjmckenzie 2007-03-10 05:40:00 UTC
@mru:
Confirmed that the workaround does work.  Lowering priority as:
1.  A workaround does exist
2.  This is functionality that 'works as designed'.
3.  A tremendous amount of effort will be needed to fix this issue.
4.  Selecting all text in a document that has a table at the beginning is a
'special case'.  In other words, not all users are expected to do this.
5.  This is definitely NOT a showstopper problem.  The program continues to
function.

Also, I will look at the three press for Cntrl-A to select all of the text.

James McKenzie
Comment 45 jjmckenzie 2007-03-10 05:42:28 UTC
@mru:
On the Mac, all Cntrl (or Apple) + A does is select the first cell in the table
(top left) then the table and then back to the first cell.  Not all text is
selected.  However, using the workaround allows all text to be selected.
James McKenzie
Comment 46 michael.ruess 2007-03-21 18:33:02 UTC
*** Issue 75615 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 47 michael.ruess 2007-03-29 10:10:43 UTC
*** Issue 75846 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 48 michael.ruess 2007-11-08 10:27:28 UTC
*** Issue 83304 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 49 sashiman 2007-11-14 19:59:58 UTC
Note:  I've downloaded a text from Project Gutenberg that after I eliminate
empty paragraphs is 165 pages of pure text.  Ctrl-A, ctrl-shift-end, and
ctrl-shift-home do not work.  There are no tables in the document.  I have
verified that there are no issues with my keyboard, and that these same
shortcuts work in shorter documents.  There are no tables in the document.  I
came to the forum to see if it was likely that it was simply the new release
2.3.0 that had this problem.
Comment 50 sashiman 2007-11-14 20:06:55 UTC
Important detail:  The failure of ctrl-A, ctrl-shift-end, ctrl-shift-home cited
above is a direct result of using "hidden characters".  My first step was to
hide the characters in the "front" and "back" material while I worked on
transforming/structuring the document.  A test reveals that this is the cause of
the problem.

hidden characters thus seem to make select fail.
Comment 51 andreas.martens 2007-11-23 11:47:06 UTC
Set target as promised to Cor ;-)
Comment 52 jjmckenzie 2007-12-08 21:00:22 UTC
@sahiman:
This is a separate issue and needs to be in an issue of its own.

James
Comment 53 michael.ruess 2008-02-18 10:09:29 UTC
*** Issue 86144 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 54 canucksailor 2008-03-13 15:40:10 UTC
This issue might be extended to selection of *all* footnotes / endnotes. I can
find nothing on-line after an extensive search. Foot/endnotes can only be
selected one at a time. I have to revert to MS Word to copy all footnotes
(editing several academic journals this is an important task).
Comment 55 michael.ruess 2008-03-19 10:28:12 UTC
*** Issue 87223 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 56 eric.savary 2008-04-25 14:11:02 UTC
*** Issue 88728 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 57 Mathias_Bauer 2008-04-26 22:37:30 UTC
*** Issue 88728 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 58 m_alnaanah 2008-04-27 07:59:43 UTC
 my issue of number 88728 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. I can't
figure if there is any attempt to solve this issue.

I voted for this issue and I invite all duplicates to vote for it.
Comment 59 Mathias_Bauer 2008-05-19 12:19:12 UTC
target 3.1
Comment 60 Regina Henschel 2008-09-27 13:01:23 UTC
*** Issue 94378 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 61 michael.ruess 2008-09-30 08:26:50 UTC
*** Issue 94447 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 62 Mathias_Bauer 2008-11-05 12:25:51 UTC
3.x
Comment 63 michael.ruess 2009-02-09 17:40:21 UTC
*** Issue 99052 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 64 eric.savary 2009-03-06 09:51:16 UTC
*** Issue 99938 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 65 murz 2009-05-06 08:27:01 UTC
Created attachment 62036 [details]
Original file screenshot
Comment 66 sergey_feo 2009-08-07 22:16:06 UTC
(Excuse me for my bad English)
I test file 7747selectall.sxw with Writer 3.1.0 (OOO310m11 build 9399). Result
is still buggy: Ctrl+A selects only first table.
Comment 67 michael.ruess 2009-11-09 08:31:19 UTC
*** Issue 106716 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 68 canucksailor 2010-02-14 21:54:17 UTC
Ctrl+A (1, 2, 3 times) appears to work except for files starting with a table.
But my query (Thu Mar 13 14:40:10 +0000 2008) concerning selecting all
endnotes/footnotes is now nearly two years old and has NOT been addressed (I
still have to use MS Office to format them - average 100 per file). Can anyone
give me a timeline for a fix or workaround? Thanks.
Comment 69 michael.ruess 2010-07-05 12:19:47 UTC
*** Issue 112927 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 70 floid 2010-09-15 21:28:38 UTC
Just a comment that this is also an annoyance in legal pleadings, which are
commonly formatted this way in some jurisdictions.

I am not deeply versed in the internals of .ODT, but given that OO.o works along
the 'paragraph'/'section'/'table' + styles model, wouldn't it make sense to
leave CTRL-A as it exists (with semantics along the lines of "Select All within
current object") and just toss on another method to "brute-force select
*everything*"?
Comment 71 floid 2010-09-15 21:30:07 UTC
*[re: previous comment -- legal pleadings may be commonly formatted with a table
as the first object in the document.]
Comment 72 eric.savary 2010-09-26 16:01:45 UTC
*** Issue 114758 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 73 michael.ruess 2010-11-04 09:11:00 UTC
*** Issue 115390 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 74 ashisuto_moi 2011-03-10 07:21:38 UTC
I vote for fixing this bug.
Comment 75 terado 2011-03-10 12:34:12 UTC
I think this is a very serious problem.
In the next version 3.4, please fix this bug.
Comment 76 Amenel 2013-01-07 21:04:38 UTC
This bug is still present in version 3.4.1 and it turns out to be immensely annoying! For instance, I can't select the whole text to change the spell checking language.
Comment 77 Rainer Bielefeld 2013-12-05 12:09:57 UTC
Created attachment 82045 [details]
Simple Sample

Still reproducible with server installation of "AOO 4.1.0-Dev – English  UI / English locale - [AOO410m1(Build:9750)  -  Rev. 1546757 - 2013-12-02]" on German WIN7 Home Premium (64bit)", own separate user profile.:

1. From AOO start center open attached sample document
2. click in front of "c" in last text row
3. <control+a> (or menu 'Edit -> Select all')
   As expected all contents becomes selected
4. Click left from "0" in first text line
5. <Del> <Del> to delete first textline
6. Retry from (2)
   Unexpectedly only "c" and Table cell "A1" selected, no way to select all
Comment 78 Rainer Bielefeld 2013-12-05 12:20:13 UTC
Additional info:
---------------
(a) There is a fixed LibO bug or this problem
(b) Latest confirmation for AOO 4.1.0-dev, but because of incomplete LCo 
    selector (Bug 123063) no correct information can be contributed.
(c) this one is not trivial, the fact that the problem has been fixed for 
    LibO and the number of DUPs and Votes  makes this one at least "Normal"
Comment 79 Rainer Bielefeld 2013-12-05 12:23:12 UTC
(d) behavior has changed in 4.1.0-dev compared to 4.0.1. In 4.0.1 in step
    3 only contents of cell A1 becomes selected
Comment 80 Rainer Bielefeld 2013-12-05 12:27:34 UTC
(e) And BTW, I do not know any trick how to select all in Comment 77 Step 6
Comment 81 tbordfeldt 2014-03-17 10:10:29 UTC
AOO 4.0.1 on Xubuntu 12.04 64bit

Very often I work with documents which have a table at the beginning, so this bug/issue is very annoying for me. I know that in LibreOffice there is meanwhile a fix for this issue. Perhaps it's possible to implement that in AOO too.