Regarding the browser, maybe it isn't "yours", but it opened when I
clicked on the email link in Open Office help, it looks like a
browser, I had never seen that interface before, no program name was
discoverable that I know of, and I coud not figure a way to get that
communication back to a familiar environment. It had all the feel of
my having been hijacked to a proprietary application. And the only way
I have been able to get that UI back is to execute a link from within
the Open Office Help environment. Maybe it isn't part of Open Office,
but something in Open office is calling it, none of my other
applications call that interface, and I haven't found any other way of
getting to it except through the Open Office Help routine. I don't
know what it is, but it looks like an Open office thing to me.
Now, regarding my error in sending this message to all of you, I
simply followed a link within that Help routine that was labelled to
provide feedback. If that isn't the appropriate way to do that, then
for Pete's sake somebody change that link. And in the meantime, don't
jump down somebody's throat for doing what they thought they were
supposed to do.
Regarding the thrust of my feedback, both of you completely ignore or
turn totally inside out the explanation of what I presented. I have
read and reread my original words, and your interpretations of that
take some real imagination. I don't know how I could have made it much
more clear what I expected it to do and what it does instead, but that
is worlds away from the mayhem you tow throw back at me. I will repeat
here this part of what I said earlier: I can't image any use for what
it actually does. Your descriptions are like from a different planet,
introducing issues that are completely irrelevant as far as I can
tell, and you made no effort to explain how they might relate.
Both of you assert that Open Office isn't and never was intended to be
a clone of MS. I never suggested that it is or should be. I simply
pointed out that a nearly identically named function in MS does do
what the name implies, and OO does not. Furthermore, everybody knows
that your assertion is a half truth at best. The developers of OO have
striven to make the transition between the two as easy on the user as
possible and tried to eliminate as many hurdles as possible for
persons making the move to OO. I am a pretty intense user of
spreadsheets, and I have used both Excel and Calc extensively. Calc is
an exact clone of Excel in almost every way. The only difference that
I can think of at the moment is the use of a semicolon for a parameter
separator rather than the comma that Excel uses. I don't quite get why
that difference exists, unless for copyright reasons. I don't have any
particular grief with the similarly, although Gates might. I think it
is wise on your part. Even the existence of that very function looks
very suspiciously like an effort to emulate MS. It just doesn't work
the same.
One of you also repeatedly questioned why I don't just use MS if I
like it better. There are two fallacies in that argument. Firstly, I
didn't say that I liked MS better. I simple offered this one function
that I like better in that package and plead for inclusion of that in
OO. I had the impression until I actually tried it that OO wanted
suggestions from their users about things they liked and disliked.
Apparently that is a ruse. Secondly, most users don't have a choice
which of the two to use. Employers supply a computer and software, and
employees are pretty much relegated to whatever that is, whether they
like it or not. Your reaction is like me going into Sears and asking
if they carry Michelin tires, and the clerk yelling "No, we don't
carry Michelin tires, and if you don't like the tires we sell, then go
to Walmart!" That would be just as ludicrous as your responses. A wise
clerk would say something like, " I'm sorry sir, but we don't carry
Michelin. They make a pretty good tire, and they are noted for long
tire life and a quiet ride. We have a tire over here from a different
manufacturer that has an identical milage warrenty as the most popular
Michelin, and it has an amazingly quiet ride." But apparently, you two
have no interest in showing me the benefits of OO, only blasting me to
articulating a perceived shortcoming.
So a couple of technical points...
Martin says that the table will only be the same size if you don't
distribute the rows. That is my point. It should be. Distributing the
rows evenly should make them fill exactly the same total height as
before, but with each row occupying an equal fraction of that height.
If that isn't what it is intended to do, then the purpose of it
escapes me. What it does do does not require a function or menu item.
There are many ways to accomplish that, as I previously stated. And
the reason that you both bring up changing fonts also escapes me, as
the topic has no effect on fonts and is not affected by fonts in any
way. It should work equally on empty cells and on cells with far more
content than can display and on anything in between. Controlling the
content is a completely separate discussion. In my case, all of the
cells were completely empty except for the paragraph mark, and all
rows were far taller both before and after the adjustment than was
needed for that mark.
Martin ends by sarcastically suggesting that I check the table
properties. There is nothing wrong with the table properties, and like
fonts, that has no bearing on the topic either as far as I can tell. I
got the results I wanted by determining the overall (total) height of
the rows that I wanted proportioned into the space they currently
occupied, calculated the even proportion that each row would need to
occupy, and then set that value with the key-in of the row height. The
table works just fine. The process just makes getting there more work
that it seems like it should be. And if there is a way to do this that
I haven't found, a more productive and civilized response would have
been to point out that method to me.
Good day, gentlemen.
On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 4:33 AM, Martin Groenescheij
<mar...@groenescheij.com <mailto:mar...@groenescheij.com>> wrote:
On 18/06/17 7:09 AM, Dayvid Artman wrote:
First of all, it is annoying and seems a bit arrogant to force
me to open
my email in your browser to send this message when I already
have my email
open in a different browser.
The real annoying thing is when people complain about something
that's not part of OpenOffice.
OpenOffice doesn't have a browser so it doesn't force you to open
it with a certain browser.
I also don't like the fact that said browser
removes (or at least hides from me) my signature stored in the
email
service. But those are not the reason for the message.
Again that's not part of OpenOffice
You have a function for working with tables that seems to have
no useful
purpose, but the title given to it would be quite useful, and
there doesn't
seem to be any way to actually do what the name of the
function implies.
What are you referring to? What title, you even don't tell which
part of OpenOffice you are using.
Microsoft Word has a function with nearly the exact same name,
and it
functions as the name suggests and is very handy.
What function you are referring to? I have no idea.
The function in question is “Distribute Rows Equally”, and it
is found
under the “Table” menu in the “Autofit” sub-menu. I read the
Help on that
topic, and it functions exactly as described, but for no
benefit that I can
imagine. The similar “Distribute Columns Evenly” operates
nearly identical,
different only in that it is limited by the page size, while
rows are not.
What the function does in make every column (or row) match the
largest one
in the selection.
That depends on your selection: Optimal Row Height or Distribute
Rows equally
I can do that in several different ways without using
this function, and the name does not suggest that such will be
the outcome.
Could it be that you have a wrong perception what the outcome will be?
It isn't “distributing” anything, it is simply expanding each
row to the
size of the largest. What I want to do (and what the name
implies what and
Microsoft does) is distribute the rows equally or evenly
within the area of
the rows selected.
Well that's what my version (4.1.3) of OpenOffice does.
And by the way OpenOffice never is, was or will be a clone of MS
Office, so don't expect that
it act as MS Office it does the things it was designed for.
The final table would occupy no more, no less, but
exactly the same space as the original, but the spacing of the
rows would
all be the same.
Now you lost me. The final table will only be the same if you
don't distribute the rows equally or
select optimal row height.
This supports providing as much space or as large a font as
practical while
keeping a consistent look and staying (for example) on one
page. There is
no easy way to do this that I know of without a command such
as this. I
must somehow measure the total space that I want the finished
table to
occupy, then manually divide that by the number of rows I
want, and then
size each one to that size. Given certain scenarios, one could
do that last
step en mass, but the first two steps are cumbersome and
tedious. The
computer could do that in a moment, just as quickly as it does
what it does
now, but with far more benefit.
I strongly urge the team at Apache to consider making this
design change.
I strongly urge you to check the Table Properties window
On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 11:38 PM, Brian Barker
<b.m.bar...@btinternet.com <mailto:b.m.bar...@btinternet.com>> wrote:
At 14:09 17/06/2017 -0700, you wrote:
First of all, it is annoying and seems a bit arrogant to force
me to open my email in your browser to send this message when
I already have my email open in a different browser.
There are layers of misunderstanding here; where to start?
o OpenOffice does not provide a browser, so no-one can know what
you might mean by "your browser".
o You can send a message to any e-mail address from any e-mail
client or system, of course, so no-one is forcing you to do
anything. If you chose to do something other than pasting an
address into your normal mail procedure, that was your choice -
no-one else's.
o Are you perhaps clicking on a mailto: link in a web page or
similar? If so, this will start a new message in whatever is the
mail client you have chosen on your system. But such a link cannot
work through a web interface to mail, so if you are choosing to
use a browser to access your mail you will need to harvest the
address and to transfer it there manually. That's all about how
you have set up your computer system and how you use it - nothing
whatever to do with OpenOffice. Any mailto: link in a web page
will behave similarly.
o You wrote to a mailing list which, as its name ("Users")
suggests, is composed mainly of users of OpenOffice - just like
you and me. So it is not "my" or "our" software (or fictional
browser), in fact, and you were not writing to OpenOffice itself.
Any replies you may receive will not be authoritative.
I also don't like the fact that said browser removes (or at
least hides from me) my signature stored in the email service.
If you use the web interface to your mail, you will have saved
your signature remotely - in Gmail's systems. And If you indeed
had now opened a default mail client on your PC (perhaps Windows
Mail?), your Gmail signature and similar things will certainly not
be there, of course.
You have a function ...
Again, *I* don't have anything. I hope we are both talking about
OpenOffice.
... for working with tables that seems to have no useful
purpose, but the title given to it would be quite useful, and
there doesn't seem to be any way to actually do what the name
of the function implies. Microsoft Word has a function with
nearly the exact same name, and it functions as the name
suggests and is very handy.
If you prefer Microsoft Word, please remember that it is very
straightforward to purchase a licence for it and to install and
use it.
The function in question is "Distribute Rows Equally" , and it
is found under the "Table" menu in the "Autofit" sub-menu. I
read the Help on that topic, and it functions exactly as
described, but for no benefit that I can imagine.
I don't see why your imagination should be required to be a brake
on what happens for others. Isn't this like purchasing a map and
complaining that it includes many places your are unlikely to
visit and roads you are unlikely ever to use? Or saying that the
piano keyboard is to long and you can't see why anyone would want
notes that high or that low? Of course there will be many
facilities in any software that you will personally find no use for.
It isn't "distributing" anything, ...
I suspect you are right. It's interesting that one page of the
help text headlines this as "Space Rows Equally" instead.
What I want to do (and what the name implies what and
Microsoft does) ...
Again, if you prefer Microsoft Word, why not use it? Why make life
unpleasant for yourself by using something you deprecate, rightly
or wrongly?
... is distribute the rows equally or evenly within the area
of the rows selected. The final table would occupy no more, no
less, but exactly the same space as the original, ...
I think "exactly the same" deals with both "no more" and "no less" ...
... but the spacing of the rows would all be the same. This
supports providing as much space or as large a font as
practical while keeping a consistent look and staying (for
example) on one page.
Suggesting that font sizes would be automatically adjusted is a
big requirement, of course - and probably goes against the idea of
using styles for formatting. Paragraph styles and character styles
each have a font size specification. If the font size is messed up
independently, what happens to the style association? If the font
size in the style is, say, 12 point and this is reduced to 10
point to fit the text in a particular table cell, what then
happens if the style is modified to 11 point? Does this affect the
reduced text or has it lost its style? If it hasn't, is the text
now enlarged to 11 point or reduced to 9 point or left at 10
point, or what? Perhaps you haven't thought through the effect of
this idea on styles.
There is no easy way to do this that I know of without a
command such as this. I must somehow measure the total space
that I want the finished table to occupy, then manually divide
that by the number of rows I want, and then size each one to
that size. Given certain scenarios, one could do that last
step en mass, but the first two steps are cumbersome and
tedious. The computer could do that in a moment, just as
quickly as it does what it does now, but with far more benefit.
I think this is easier than you suggest. Select all the rows in
the table (Ctrl+A twice), right-click and go to Row > | Height...,
untick "Fit to size", and adjust the single value for Height for
the appearance you wish to see. Any cell that is now over-full
with text will display a red triangular arrow where the text
spills over. Now select these cells individually and adjust the
font size to suit.
But I'm not sure I'd ever want to do this. A document that
adjusted font sizes apparently randomly just to fit different
amounts of text into the same size table cells would be very messy
and unattractive. How about changing the font size in a book so
that each chapter occupies exactly the same number of pages? You'd
be alarmed to find you'd bought a book like that. Perhaps it's
precisely because no-one (or few) would want to do this or that
the developers do not see it as desirable that an easier method
should be provided.
I strongly urge the team at Apache to consider making this
design change.
You can suggest enhancements at the web site, using the same
mechanism as is used to report bugs. See
https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/QA/HowToFileIssue
<https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/QA/HowToFileIssue> and
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/ .
But do remember that the fact that Microsoft Word does something
one way is not considered a reason for OpenOffice to do it that
way too. OpenOffice is not intended to be (and never will be) a
free clone of Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office is readily
available for anyone who prefers to use it.
I trust this helps.
Brian Barker - privately
