Hi Thomas,
Currently in Calc neither rows nor columns can be easily moved
manually.
It is possible to drag & drop e.g. a column into a new position,
but the dropped column is not inserted, but overwrites the existing
cells.
[...]
After some discussions the following proposals came out:
1.) drag & drop with mouse pointer in column or row header
------------------------------------------------------
When dragging starts with the mouse pointer in the column/row
header, the whole column/row is copied or moved and
inserted at the target column/row. In this case, existing
cells are not overwritten.
cons: - Works only for columns and rows, but not for cell ranges.
- May not be very intuitive.
I think this would be a great thing to have. I would have liked to have
this many times. And always for entire rows or columns.
I like the way you can drag out table headers leaving a gap and moving
it between two other columns, which open up a space, like it is done in
Apple applications (e.g. iTunes). But I suppose this is bit too
difficult to realize in VCL.
This would be the behaviour I would expect: When nothing is selected,
clicking on row 5 and "draging" to row 8 should mark all rows between 5
and 8 (this is currently happening). Clicking again on the marked space
(e.g. row 7) should start a drag & drop action that moves the rows until
the button is released.
2.) use additional keyboard shortcuts
---------------------------------
Currently, the following modifiers are used for drag & drop
of cell ranges in Calc:
modifier action
----------------------
- move
Shift move
Ctrl copy
Shift+Ctrl link
What's the difference between "-" and "Shift"? Looks like "Shift" could
be used for "move + insert". This would skip "copy + insert", which
might be useful, and "link + insert" which is probably more exotic.
As already written, for all those actions existing cells are
overwritten. In principal it's possible to use different
keyboard shortcutts or an additional modifier, e.g. Alt
for the insert case, that means existing cells are not
overwritten:
modifier action
-----------------------------
Shift+Alt move + insert
Ctrl+Alt copy + insert
Shift+Ctrl+Alt link + insert
cons: - Alt may not work on Unix/Linux platforms.
Nice for power users, but maybe hard to find. And isn't there also
something on Windows that switches the input method with Shift+Ctrl+Alt?
Could also be a problem when you have more than one input method
installed. (I hate this option, especially as it comes always back, even
when turning it off, but that's a different story ;-) ).
3.) ask user when dropping
----------------------
Another approach may be to ask the user, that means opening a dialog
after releasing the mouse button. The user may choose between
overwriting existing cells or simply inserting.
cons: - No visual indicator for the exact drop position.
- The dialog may be bothersome.
Personally, I would refrain from a dialog on drop if there is a better
solution.
-Bjoern
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