https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45606

--- Comment #1 from Drew Jensen <[email protected]> 2012-02-04 10:12:44 PST 
---
Right - this is really more of a UX defect IMO.

As I think you have found the 'Default Value' property in the table editor is
used only to feed the GUI controls and is not used when creating/editing the
table DDL command. 

It's also then a fact that the Default Value entered in the table editor
property can only be a string value, you can enter a string representation of a
numeric value of course.

The reason, again IIRC, that this property ended up on the table property
editor is that is must be available to all and any GUI controls in the
applicaton - a dataview (dbl click a table, the beemer displayed in
Calc/Writer, form wizard use, etc). It is also the situation that Base can work
with datasources that are not full blow RDBM and may not have a built in
default value feature.

Setting the value in the table definition property editor where all other
setting are used to when defining the actual table structure in whatever back
end used is however, IMO, also the big UX problem. When using a RDBMS that does
support def-vals in column definitions the users think, naturally, that this
value would be used for such purpose. This comes up very often when dealing
with users.

The help text displayed in the property editor really isn't a lot of help here
either: [English text follows]
"Enter a default value for this field.

When you later enter data in the table, this string will be used in each new
record for the field selected. It should, therefore, correspond to the cell
format that needs to be entered below."

It's technically accurate but doesn't really seem to impart the information in
a way that helps. That and the layout doesn't really help to get the user to
read it, as if most would anyway :)

So, I think it would be worthwhile to come better wording, tho I'm not at all
convinced it would lesson the confusion on the users part substantially.

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