Joined: Jan 07, 2009 Posts: 27 Location: Carlisle, England
Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:13 pm Post subject: Re: Creating a list using a combo box.
bryoman wrote:
What isn't working yet though is autocomplete. No idea why. I followed James' hints, and of course my dropdown cells ARE in the same column as the name list. So not certain - nothing else needs activating, does it?
pluby wrote:
Open the Tools :: Cell Contents and see if the AutoInput menu item is checked. If not, select that menu item to enable autocompletion. Does that enable autocompletion?
Patrick
Magic: that does it! (I should have found that one for myself!)
All up-and-running now... (There is still a lot of clicking the target: a lot of plants share the same (often longish) initial genus names (e.g. Geranium...) and one would have to type the whole genus name and into the specific name before it gave the full name - but that's just the way of things).
Grateful thanks again for all your help. I guess we've gone as far as we can or indeed need at the moment... (I'm pretty certain I'll be back again "within the year" for more advice...)
Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:20 pm Post subject: Re: Creating a list using a combo box.
bryoman wrote:
All up-and-running now... (There is still a lot of clicking the target: a lot of plants share the same (often longish) initial genus names (e.g. Geranium...) and one would have to type the whole genus name and into the specific name before it gave the full name - but that's just the way of things).
I don't know if you know this, autocompletion displays the first match but you can then press the Tab key to display the next match without having to click on the combobox arrow button.
Hope that helps,
Patrick
Edit by pluby: correct wrong key in original post
Last edited by pluby on Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:57 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Jan 07, 2009 Posts: 27 Location: Carlisle, England
Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:36 pm Post subject: Re: Creating a list using a combo box.
pluby wrote:
I don't know if you know this, autocompletion displays the first match but you can then press the Down arrow key to display the next match without having to click on the combobox arrow button.
Hope that helps,
Patrick
Ah - well, I did try that... for me, down arrow just jumps me to the next cell down!
Joined: Jan 07, 2009 Posts: 27 Location: Carlisle, England
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 3:24 am Post subject: Re: Creating a list using a combo box.
pluby wrote:
bryoman wrote:
Ah - well, I did try that... for me, down arrow just jumps me to the next cell down!
My mistake, the Tab key moves autocompletion to the next match and Shift-Tab moves to the previous match.
Patrick
Ah yes - so it does! Thank you!
Now this is embarrassing.... With all the above (Approach 2 and all that), I now find that autocomplete only functions for the top ca. 200 names in my list. Booo. (Did it work for all 2000 names last night before I retired to bed?? Dunno, now.)
If I open the dropdown list from the target arrow and click a name in any position below the 200th name, that does select the name into the cell. But autocomplete just doesn't respond for anything typed in for a name below the 200th position (roughly 200th - seems to vary, curiously).
HOWEVER, if I have previously selected something from the bottom of the list - e.g. "Zostera marina" - THAT will be brought up when I type "Z", but it doesn't 'know' "Zostera angustifolia", the name above it. (That 'awareness' is retained over a save-and-close of the file.)
I am unable to reproduce what you are seeing so can you attach a copy of your spreedsheet document? I can then see if I can reproduce what you see on my machine.
To attach a copy of your document to your next post, use the instructions in this post.
Joined: Jan 07, 2009 Posts: 27 Location: Carlisle, England
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 8:39 am Post subject:
pluby wrote:
I am unable to reproduce what you are seeing so can you attach a copy of your spreedsheet document? I can then see if I can reproduce what you see on my machine.
To attach a copy of your document to your next post, use the instructions in this post.
Patrick
Thanks, Patrick - attached. The dropdown cells are between C2 and C60 (red bounding box) and the name list starts at C100.
[Hope you DO and hope you DON'T find a stupid blunder on my part! ]
Thank you for the spreadsheet document. I can reproduce the problem that you are seeing.
Unfortunately, I have bad news: the problem is caused by NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org Calc code. The OpenOffice.org code stops searching for autocompletion matches after only 200 rows.
Given this limitation, you may need to resort to using a more manual approaches when autocompletion fails. Other than writing a macro attached to a button and a combobox, my only other idea is to use the Find & Replace dialog using the following steps. These steps are not ideal, but hopefully they work better than having to guess at names:
1. Press the Command-F keys to open the Find & Replace dialog.
2. In the dialog that appears, enter a portion of the plant name that you are looking for and press the Return key.
3. The selected cell will jump to the first match and pressing the Return key again will jump to the next match. Once you find the name that you want, press the Command-C keys to copy the name.
4. Navigate back to the cell that you want to put the name into (I press the Command-up/down/left/right arrow keys to jump over a large number of cells) and press the Command-V keys to paste the name.
Over the next week, I will try increasing the limit but since Microsoft Excel has the same 200 row limit, I don't have too much hope that increasing the limit will be feasible as I suspect that raising the limit will cause typing speed in Calc to slow down significantly.
Joined: Jan 07, 2009 Posts: 27 Location: Carlisle, England
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 12:59 pm Post subject:
pluby wrote:
Thank you for the spreadsheet document. I can reproduce the problem that you are seeing.
Unfortunately, I have bad news: the problem is caused by NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org Calc code. The OpenOffice.org code stops searching for autocompletion matches after only 200 rows.
Given this limitation, you may need to resort to using a more manual approaches when autocompletion fails. Other than writing a macro attached to a button and a combobox, my only other idea is to use the Find & Replace dialog using the following steps. These steps are not ideal, but hopefully they work better than having to guess at names:
1. Press the Command-F keys to open the Find & Replace dialog.
2. In the dialog that appears, enter a portion of the plant name that you are looking for and press the Return key.
3. The selected cell will jump to the first match and pressing the Return key again will jump to the next match. Once you find the name that you want, press the Command-C keys to copy the name.
4. Navigate back to the cell that you want to put the name into (I press the Command-up/down/left/right arrow keys to jump over a large number of cells) and press the Command-V keys to paste the name.
Over the next week, I will try increasing the limit but since Microsoft Excel has the same 200 row limit, I don't have too much hope that increasing the limit will be feasible as I suspect that raising the limit will cause typing speed in Calc to slow down significantly.
Patrick
OK, Patrick: many thanks yet again for chasing this up - and for the find-and-replace suggestion, which I've tried out.
Actually, I'm finding that opening the dropdown list and then scrolling down (with the trackpad - very fast) to any names below the 200 limit, selecting, then arrow down to go to the next cell, etc., is also pretty fast and provides an error-free as a way of creating a list perhaps with fewer steps.
You'll let me know if you find a way of extending the 200 name limit.. without it going slow.
I have some good news: I was able to raise the maximum number of rows that autocompletion searches through from 200 to 16,384 rows without any big drop in typing speed.
Raising the limit definitely does slow down typing, but my hope is that the slowdown is small enough that it won't be noticeable.
Can you install the following test patch and tell us if autocompletion is now finding matches in columns with more than 200 text cells?:
Joined: Jan 07, 2009 Posts: 27 Location: Carlisle, England
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:02 pm Post subject:
pluby wrote:
I have some good news: I was able to raise the maximum number of rows that autocompletion searches through from 200 to 16,384 rows without any big drop in typing speed.
Raising the limit definitely does slow down typing, but my hope is that the slowdown is small enough that it won't be noticeable.
Can you install the following test patch and tell us if autocompletion is now finding matches in columns with more than 200 text cells?:
The mind boggles! [as they say round here - whose catchphrase was that??? 'The Perishers'??])
That DOES autocomplete roght down to 'Zostera' as you say, and I can't see ANY slow-down in response (with my 2000 names list)... Amazing!
So now with unlimited access to long lists, and Tab or Shift-tab to go back and forth through the 'neighbours' in the list, that really does sort it. (*)
Very grateful thanks! - I do hope this is useful to other folks also...
FYI. I have included the increase in rows that autocompletion searches through that was in the previous test patch in NeoOffice 3.3 Patch 4. The patch can be downloaded from the NeoOffice patch download page.
Joined: Jan 07, 2009 Posts: 27 Location: Carlisle, England
Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:13 am Post subject:
pluby wrote:
FYI. I have included the increase in rows that autocompletion searches through that was in the previous test patch in NeoOffice 3.3 Patch 4. The patch can be downloaded from the NeoOffice patch download page.
Patrick
OK - excellent - thanks, Patrick. All working well now.
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(I should have found that one for myself!)
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