https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150652
Bug ID: 150652
Summary: CSV (Text) import dialog: Improve discoverability of
Column type setting
Product: LibreOffice
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Keywords: needsUXEval
Severity: enhancement
Priority: medium
Component: Calc
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
CSV Import dialog [1] allows one to define field type explicitly: each column
in the preview area is clickable, and then one can either select column type
from the dropdown above the preview, or can right-click on the columns
themselves to bring the choice menu. This is very important for CSV/text
import, because the data does not include information about the data type
itself, and thus a multitude of corner cases exist, where automatic detection
of default settings would fail: e.g., textual data like card ids that may be
confused with numbers, and conversion could result in data loss.
The problem is the poor discoverability of the setting. The drop-down "Column
type:" control does not tell user that it would activate on a column click;
such rich interaction (with context menus) is generally uncharacteristic for
dialogs.
The information about setting "formatting" (bad term; data type is proper) of
the columns is also given at [2]. However, users don't find this. Many
questions appear at Ask, and also here in bugzilla - see e.g. bug 150635, which
encouraged me to report this UX issue.
The problem could be solved in many ways (e.g., adding some descriptive text to
the dialog). My proposal would be to add a drop-down control (down arrow) to
each column header, similar to how autofilter looks in Calc. This way, user
would immediately see the actionable controls, and checking those, would learn
that the dialog allows to define the types of columns. (This specific proposal
is just a suggestion, and the issue would be resolved by whatever improvement
UX finds reasonable.)
[1]
https://help.libreoffice.org/7.4/en-US/text/shared/00/00000208.html?DbPAR=CALC
[2]
https://help.libreoffice.org/7.4/en-US/text/scalc/guide/csv_files.html?DbPAR=CALC
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