This email tries to start a discussion about copy or drag over filtered rows. I write this as a user, with no idea about the method or complexity of implementation.
(a) Some background The history of this issue can be seen at Issuezilla issue 2977 and 33851. A brief summary of the problem follows for those who have not heard about this before: When a user drags or copies over a filtered range, it happens that the hidden (filtered) rows will be changed. This is not the expected behaviour, and provides a source of despair or other strong emotions among users, when they later find their data has changed. (b) Who are the users? The average or simple user probably does not know about filters. Filters are a type of "database" concept which can be used when data is organised in tables or lists. So the user needs some idea about lists, and some idea about logic. The user needs to move beyond simple use of spreadsheets before they will feel a need for filters. But when the user becomes adapted to use the filters they find it is a powerful tool for searching and cleaning data, for example where the data has been imported or where some errors or missing data have been introduced for example after using vlookup. Therefore the users who are most affected by this issue are the "power users". They are relatively small in number but they are highly influential when it comes to evaluation or possible migration to OOo. (c) Why is this hard to solve? When a drag or copy/paste is done across rows that are hidden by the filter then the filtering is ignored. There are various "special cases". For example, what should be done if the source cells contain data or formulas? What is a formula references other rows, filtered (hidden) or not? What if the target selection range is different size/shape from the source range? As there are many special cases and many different opinions, there has been not much progress to settle on a correct or agreed solution. (d) What about other spreadsheets? I do not believe the behaviour should be always the same as any other spreadsheet, but I know some users and developers would have a different opinion. In any case the behaviour needs to be safe and not surprising to the users. This issue did also afflict MSExcel for a short time more than ten years ago. A study of the behaviour in that application suggests that some correction has been made for a special case but the underlying behaviour has been allowed to persist for every other case. (e) What is the solution? This is a matter of opinion. My view is that an improvement for one type of case is a step forward, and it does not matter if other cases remain as they are now. We know about the case when drag or copy is done from a single row, onto a range of filtered rows below. If that one case is fixed, so that the filtered (hidden) rows are not changed, then I believe most of the user needs will be met. This solution does not require any other cases to be known. The specification attached at issue 33851 is a first step to describe this approach. thanks jim --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
