Dotan Cohen wrote:
Yes, but it is not the default locale in any but Hungarian and
Latvian. I need it to be my default date format, so when an
unformatted cell gets 2005-9-2 Calc doesn't mangle it into something
else.
This can not work with "unformatted cells" (you mean number format
"General"). You are the one to format your cells or not.
2005-9-2, 2.9.05 or the "true" value 37504 makes no difference at all. It is
really the same value. No formula result nor filter nor sort order depends
on the number format.
Let me state it another way:
A user opens Calc and creates a new spreadsheet. He enters
"2009-12-13" into cell A1. He expects that text to remain "2009-12-13"
when he presses Tab. What must I configure beforehand to ensure that
he gets what he expects?
No spreadsheet I'm aware of implements this kind of artificial
intelligence. A tool with such a "deep level of understanding" would be
rather unproductive.
Professional spreadsheet users are familiar with consistent formatting
together with short input methods, I guess. This is how these tools use
to work since decades.
I enter 13/ 14/ 15/ on the num-pad in German locale context and get:
13.12.09
14.12.09
15.12.09
The default format indicates that my sloppy input is taken as intended.
The numbers of subtype "Date" appear neat and clean one below each other
and I can change the formatting later.
I enter arbitrary figures with trailing % and € and get 2-decimal
percent values and currencies without losing accuracy in case of more
decimal digits.
Second variant:
I hit Ctrl+Space, Ctrl+Shift+F12 and the entire column is formatted as
ISO date since the latter shortcut is bound to my "ISODate" cell style.
I continue entering numeric expressions and all of them are shown as
uniform ISO dates, even percents or currencies.
I can format hundreds of ranges, rows and columns across the document
and later I can modify all of them in one go, simply modifying the cell
style.
The first input method makes use of limited auto-formatting. Only number
format "General" applies one distinct format per sub-type. For me this
is a perfect way to create a quick and dirty scenario sheet.
I use the second input method mostly with preformatted ranges in
templates having functionally separated areas on separate sheets.
All the differently formatted ranges can be adjusted to another locale,
currency, date format, color simply changing the underlying cell style
without having to search for all the cells with a certain formatting.
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