Calc: Paste Special

[rayjay]

This is a very trivial point. When the source is a group of cells, the default dialog for Paste Special is "Paste all", but if you deselect this then six of the seven more specific options are automatically selected. Am I alone in using Paste Special most often just for one option - to copy formats or to transfer dates, for example? This means I have to deselect all the options I don't want. I would certainly find it quicker if the default had nothing pre-selected, or at least if deselecting "Paste all" left the remaining options deselected.

Richard

[pluby]

I understand your annoyance with having all of the options selected by default, but I think most of the feature that you want already exists in NeoOffice 3.1.1.

In Neooffie 3.1.1, after you uncheck the unwanted options and paste, Paste All will remain unchecked and the same options will remain unselected the next time that you use the Edit :: Paste Special menu.

Are you not seeing this behavior on your machine?

Patrick

[rayjay]

Thanks Patrick

Yes, that is what happens. I just wondered if it would be possible to miss out that first cycle of deselection - which is why I started off by confessing that it was a very trivial issue.

Richard

[pluby]

[rayjay]

Thanks again, Patrick. If I was being really picky I would prefer the default checkbox to leave all options unchecked, so that I can go as quickly as possible to the option(s) I need. If I want to "Paste all" don't I get that just by using "Paste" instead of "Paste Special" - or am I missing something?

[pluby]

While unchecking all options may appeal to you, I am firmly against such a change. The reason is that when you select the Edit :: Paste Special menu, the intent is to paste something and so the default should paste something reasonable.

Unchecking all means that the default does nothing which I believe will result in support requests and driving up our support costs to save one click per launch of NeoOffice just is not a wise use our limited resources.

Patrick

[rayjay]

Point taken.

Richard

[Stefan]

Dear Patrick,

I would like to come back to Richard's point. I understand that having nothing selected does not make sense. But like Richard, everytime when I restart Neooffice and use this paste special (and I'm only using this, I have even remapped my keyboard shortcuts!), I need to firstly unclick and click a lot of squares (usually 5 of them!). So I have another suggestion: would it be possible that neooffice stores the current selection (in a user-specific preference file?!?) so that when I restart neooffice the next time, I get the same preselection as it was the last time I used it?

Stefan

[rayjay]

Yes, that would be a good option.

Richard

[pluby]

I have added custom preferences to NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code in the past so I am pretty confident that it is feasible for us to implement Stefan's proposed approach of saving the selections in that particular Calc "paste special" dialog in NeoOffice's user preference files.

Since this new feature request is feasible, the only other thing that we need to see is whether enough other donors also want this feature. Essentially, we fund new features by spending current donations to implement the new feature and then, hopefully, the new feature generates new donations that replenishes the donations used to implement the new feature.

I have a pretty good idea of the amount of engineering work needed to implement this new feature. rayjay and Stefan have already voted for this new approach so if at least 10 other NeoOffice donors reply to this post that they also want this new feature, then we will have a pretty good level of confidence that the new feature will generate the necessary donations and I will then start working on the new feature.

Is this a feature that any other NeoOffice donors want to see added to NeoOffice? If so, please let us know.

Patrick

[sardisson]

FWIW, I would be in favor of remembering the state of the checkboxes in Calc's "Paste Special" window.

Smokey

[Lorinda]

+1

[ovvldc]

Not a high priority item for me, but convenient to have.

[pluby]

I noticed that this new feature request got 5 of the 10 votes needed very quickly but then no more votes have come in since then so I am posting to "bump" this new feature request to see if gets any more votes.

Patrick

[amayze]

I've been bitten by this annoyance, so it gets my vote too.

Andy