Hi, I've just begun using the spreadsheet program in Open Office, and I've found a few little things I wish it could do. I might even be able to write some of it in C++. These don't necessarily have to be in everyone's version of the software, I just wish it were available to me. But these are simple:
----Icon for "number format: time": There are icon sets at the tops of the screen, some of which apply number formats to your cells: one for currency (you can set this to your local default, it seems), one for percent, one for dates, etc. I wanted one for time, so found it in the "customize icon sets" menu, but it had no icon associated with it. So I chose "modify > change icon..." and searched around to find a little clock, and it's perfect. Maybe you should make the clock a default instead of the words "number format: time". ----Choose default date and time formats: The above-mentioned icons for date and time formats automatically change numbers into dates or times, which is great, but it always does it in the same format: 08/29/09 or 12:34:56 PM (respectively). I want to be able to choose the default formats, which are not those ones. ----Option to remove or hide extraneous options: What prompts this for me specifically was that I was scrolling through the available date formats to find my favorite, and I had to scroll past all of these Jewish date formats to discover that my favorite was not on your list. I was able to create my own format to use, which is great, but it now appears at the very bottom of the list, so every time I want to choose it, I have to scroll past all those Jewish dates again. Now, I have no problem with Jewish dates (or any other calendars, for that matter), but I'm almost certainly never going to use them, so I wish I could just remove them from the list, or hide them somewhere out of the way. Or re-arrange the list to my liking, so I don't have to keep scrolling past them. ----Change date codes: In writing my own date code, I was happily impressed with the options available to me, and I went to your help file to see what all of my choices were. However, I encountered an interesting decision by whomever wrote the codes for what would appear when you made dates. Specifically: D -- Day as 2 DD -- Day as 02 NN or DDD -- Day as Sun-Sat NNN or DDDD -- Day as Sunday to Saturday NNNN -- Day followed by comma, as in "Sunday," Now, I like that typing either 'N's or 'D's will get you the day of the week, but who decided that 3 D's is the same as 2 N's? Sometimes it's very important to know the day of the week, and not just the calendar date, so I'm happy we have the option of showing the day of the week within the date. However, in the spirit of minimizing space, it's good to be able to abbreviate, showing "Sat" instead of "Saturday," for instance. But this can be further abbreviated, as I'm sure you've seen on office calendars and schedules and such: M - Monday T - Tuesday W - Wednesday R or H - Thursday F - Friday Obviously, this is not an ideal system, since there are several days containing an "R", and this system doesn't do much for the non-work days of Saturday and Sunday. Nevertheless, this is a system in use by some people, so I believe it should be represented by typing one "N". Another alternative to this one-letter abbreviation system is a two-letter system which is far more understandable: Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa, Su. This is what I like to use, because it clearly shows the day of the week while using the smallest space possible. So I would like 2 N's to show this format, rather than 2 N's giving you a 3-letter day of the week. It seems far more sensible that one N give you a one-letter day-name, 2 N's give you a two-letter name, 3 N's give you a three-letter name, and 4 N's give you a long name. Again, I could easily write some of this into C++, but I mostly wish I could just make it work this way on my computer so I don't have to bother all of the other millions of users if they don't want these changes. So please let me know how I can help, or how you can help me. Oh, and also let me know where the best repository is for these types of requests: I searched around on your web-site and this was the best thing I came up with. Thanks so much! --Eric ---------------------------------------------- Eric Kindig ekin...@gmail.com www.FaceBook.com/EKindig ---------------------------------------------- -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands send email to sy...@openoffice.org with Subject: help
