Hi Dennis:
Yes, you have interpreted my meaning very nicely.
OK; a calendar pop out (1) or an utility (2) would be a welcomed
addition to AOO Calc.
Does a feature exist whereby I can insert Today's Date into a Calc cell?
I've yet to begin to play with AOO Base.
Regards,
Vince_B.
On 1/28/2015 8:16 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
Let me try my understanding and perhaps help to calibrate what you are after.
1. Consider a button that would pop out a small calendar in the usual format,
with navigation from month to month and the typical 4-5 rows of date numbers
against days of the week. There might also be some convenience for navigating
to distant months that do not have the current date.
Clicking on a date would cause the specified date to inserted into a
currently-selected cell. Closing the calendar without clicking would not make
an entry. If the calendar pop-out is kept active, other dates could be
selected into other cells.
2. Another pop-out might be more like a calculator that works with dates.
That is more of a stretch. Some of your examples suggest that kind of activity.
Q1. With regard to (1), which might be an interesting exercise for creation
of an extension, I wonder how close one can get already by the ways that
date-formatted cells accept abbreviated entries. For example, entering a month
and day, such as 01-28 (today in my locale settings) can automatically enter a
full calendar date in the current year. This is commonplace. I don't know
what would happen if I entered just 28 when the cell is already formatted to
contain a date.
I know this is not the same as being able to look at a calendar and use the
orientation that provides to help us determine a past or future date. Is it
any saving of effort, so long that you have a calendar handy?
Q2. Would a utility that ran outside of OpenOffice Calc that provided (1),
and put a full calendar date (and even times converted from the local time)
onto the clipboard for pasting into a document of any kind, including Calc
cells be a step in the right direction that would give you some of the working
efficiency you care about?
Note that I have omitted consideration of date calculations since those are
easily accomplished with Calc already, just as calculations among other cell
entries. It takes some understanding of cell formatting for date-times and for
time intervals, but there is extensive support in Calc already.
- Dennis
PS: For any follow-up, please reply to users @ openoffice.apache.org where
other experts may have advice and others can learn the solutions to common
problems. The OpenOffice Forums have an extensive knowledge base at
https://forum.openoffice.org/,
-----Original Message-----
From: Vince B. [mailto:wa.two...@verizon.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2015 14:38
To: users@openoffice.apache.org
Subject: Re: Drop Down Menu in AOO4.1.1
There are no suggested values; I manually monitor data on a random date
(whenever I happen to be close to an elapsed time meter that is connected to my
heating system. I write the data on paper, and note also the date. Then, I
enter the collected data into my AOO spreadsheet.
I am afraid I failed to be clear about what I desire. I am looking for a
Calendar-type of dropdown menu to be repeated within a row of spreadsheet
cells. I don't know the correct name ! (Might need a macro? Or, perhaps an
add-on to AOO.). Thus, I have not been successful searching in AOO's Help file.
As I mentioned, I seek an easier way to enter a calendar date; similar to what
may be found in a financial s/w (e.g., checkbook register entry) or in a
Calendar s/w, where I can quickly select a desired Month, then the Day of that
month, all within a preselected Year. It would be great if the DD/MM/YYYY is
repeated (unchanged) until I menu-select a new DD/MM/YYYY.
Is there such a function in AOO? Once the date is selected, the spreadsheet
formula calcs the elapsed number of days between one cell and the immediate
next cell. For example:
A1 contains the date of, last Thursday; today is Wednesday, which is set in A2.
I need to count the number of days; A2-A1, to calc amount of Heating Fuel
consumed. .... Counting the number of elapsed days is not the issue; quick
selection of revised date data is.
Maybe such a dropdown menu is available in AOO Base, and I will need to combine
Base and Spreadsheet?
Regards,
VinceB
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 28, 2015, at 11:42, Brian Barker <b.m.bar...@btinternet.com> wrote:
At 11:19 28/01/2015 -0500, Vince Bonly wrote:
Can someone point me to info on creating a dropdown menu in a Spreadsheet cell,
if this is possible? I have created a spreadsheet to calculate Heating Fuel
consumption, and frequently need to enter a specific date into a cell. A
dropdown menu, I think, would save me time when needing to do this.
o Enter the suggested values into cells somewhere in the spreadsheet. (These
can be tucked away somewhere.)
o Potentially select this cell range and use Insert | Names > | Define... to
give the list a name.
o Select the target cell or cell range.
o Go to Data | Validity... .
o On the Criteria tab, for Allow, select Cell Range.
o Click in the Source box and either drag over the list or type its name.
There are many options you can adjust, such as "Show selection list" (which you will
want), as well as "Allow blank cells", and providing some help text when the target cell
is selected. The Error Alert tab allows you to control whether values not in the list are permitted
(Warning instead of Stop) and an error message that can be produced.
I trust this helps.
Brian Barker
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