Inserting Notes in Calc

wyomason · Agent Joined: Mar 20, 2006 Posts: 15

After creating a note in Calc by highlighting the cell to which the note pertains and issuing the command to "Insert Note", and then creating the note, the note does not appear to be anchored to the cell. If you do "Show Note" so the note is always displayed on top of the spreadsheet, and then you insert or delete rows, the note slides around so it is no longer near the cell to which it pertains. The option to anchor the note is disabled.

Am I not understanding how this is supposed to work?

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

I am not sure what you are seeing, but when you select the Insert :: Note menu, type in note text, and then move to another cell, a small red dot appears in the cell that you inserted the note into.

If you do not enable a cell's Show Note option, that cell's note will appear only when you hover your mouse over that cell's small red dot. If you enable the cell's Show Note option, the note will always be displayed near that cell no matter which cell you move your mouse over.

Does that make sense? If so, are you seeing different behavior than I am seeing?

Patrick

wyomason · Agent Joined: Mar 20, 2006 Posts: 15

Everything you say is true up to the sentence, " If you enable the cell's Show Note option, the note will always be displayed near that cell no matter which cell you move your mouse over. " The note is not always displayed near that cell. I like to keep my notes displayed at all times. What I think is happening (and I am only guessing here) is the note is displayed relative to the spreadsheet, so many inches from the top and so many inches from the left. Well, if you add or delete rows, the cell moves up or down while the note stays put. So the note is no longer displayed next to the cell. The end of the arrow pointing to the cell no longer points to the correct cell.

Brian.

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

I see what you mean how the notes do not move relative to the Calc window, but in my documents the note's arrow always points to the correct cell even when I insert or delete rows or columns.

Can you tell us which NeoOffice version and patch you are using? The obtain the version and patch, select the Help :: About NeoOffice menu.

Patrick

wyomason · Agent Joined: Mar 20, 2006 Posts: 15

Patrick,

I'm currently using NeoOffice-3.0.2-Patch-2-Intel

Brian.

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

OK. Since I cannot get the note arrows to disconnect from the correct cell in my documents, can you attach a sample Calc document and tell us which cell has this problem? We can then look at your document is what is triggering this behavior.

You can attach a sample document using the steps in this this forum post.

Patrick

wyomason · Agent Joined: Mar 20, 2006 Posts: 15

I tried inserting a note into another spreadsheet. The end of the arrow was anchored to the cell. That spreadsheet was created in the .xls format.

However, on the attached spreadsheet, which was created in the .ods format, that is not the case. Go down to row 4440 to find the note. It is supposed to be tied to cell W4440.

Thanks for looking into this.

Brian.

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Thank you for the sample document. I can reproduce the bug that you see not only in NeoOffice, but also in OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 (the version that NeoOffice is based on) and OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 (their latest version) so this is definitely a bug in NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code.

Normally, our very limited donations only provides enough funding for one full-time engineer and one part-time support technician so we are unable to fix OpenOffice.org feature bugs. However, I will do a little more investigation if I have some time this week before I conclude that this OpenOffice.org bug is not fixable.

This may still be unfixable by us, but I noticed a pattern when using your file: the amount of distance that the note's arrow is offset appears to increase proportionately to the cell's row number. This makes me think that there might be some sort position rounding error that is causing this bug.

I will post again in the next week to tell you if my investigation yields any good or bad news.

Patrick

James3359 · Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 10:33 am Post subject:

I don't know if this is helpful, Patrick, but might the bug be related to OOo Issue 59745? Also there is a discussion of a similar issue on the OOo Community Forum where the problem seems to have been solved in OO 3.2 Novell Edition.

Hope this might help.

James

wyomason · Agent Joined: Mar 20, 2006 Posts: 15

This has been the situation for quite some time. It finally got annoying enough for me to report it.

Is there anything you would like me to do from my end? Knowing you, you could probably come up with a work-around. But that is probably not the best solution.

Again, thanks for looking into this.

Brian.

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

FYI. I tried merging the fix in OpenOffice.org issue 109372 but that fix did not fix this bug.

I will now try merging the fix in OpenOffice.org issue 59745 that James3359 found and see if that has any effect on this bug.

Patrick