I think there were no possibility of higlighting sheet cell text in
any version of Gnumeric. So in my opinion it's not a bug...

It is a bug.  While _editing_ a cell.  The current selection is
highlighted on the edit line, but not in the cell.

Hmm, on further reflection I don't think we need the editline's selection
mirrored in the cell.

XL does not mirror the cursor or the selection
OO mirrors the selection sometimes but not the cursor
Gnumeric mirrors the cursor

Usability folk ideas ?

On one hand it seems useful to keep the two states consistent.  On the other
it's also useful to provide a clear visual clue about which has focus.  If OOo
was symetric I think that would be preferable.

Any input from the usability team ?

Hmm, thought I'd commented on this before, maybe I just spoke to jody about it
on IRC a while back.

Personally, I would say that you need to show the selection and text cursor in
whichever control (cell or edit area) the user last explicitly selected, and
show neither in the other control.  It's kind of weird when I'm (visually)
focused on a cell and editing it to see selection activity happening up near the
top of the screen but not where I'm apparently typing, especially when the edit
line isn't even (keyboard) focused.  But if I'd selected the cell, then clicked
in the edit line to edit, then certainly I would expect to see the cursor and
selection highlights in the edit line, and neither in the cell itself.

Or, to look at it another way, it's kind of weird that pressing F2 actually
moves focus to a different control, but still makes it look as though I'm typing
into the original control.

Of the two evils, mirroring the cursor is probably the greater, as the presence
of an active text cursor in a control normally indicates that it has focus-- so
right now it looks as if two controls have focus, which is contrary to 508
guidelines.  Heck, the cursors don't even flash in sync :)

I wouldn't object so much to selection mirroring if anyone can think of a good
reason for it, but in that case, the mirrored selection should be done in a
secondary highlight colour, as the primary highlight colour should also be an
indication of which control has focus.

(Just to correct this sentence a little:

"It's kind of weird when I'm (visually) focused on a cell and editing it to see
selection activity happening up near the top of the screen but not where I'm
apparently typing, especially when the edit line isn't even (keyboard) focused."

The edit line doesn't get focus when you just select a cell and start typing,
but I see now that you can't then select what you've just typed until you've
pressed F2, at which point it does get focus.  But that doesn't change the main
thrust of my comments...)

*** Bug 552792 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Wow! This bug has been in Gnumeric since 2003? I can see that you don't care much about editing :)

I agree with Calum Benson's idea (it is consistent with XL): the text is highlighted where the focus is. If the user is editing on the cell it should be highlighted on the cell and the same if he is editing on the edit box.

One part that this bug report doesn't cover: you can't select text in a cell using the mouse (at least under win32)

*** Bug 561706 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I agree with comment#5: wherever the user last selected, cell or edit area, should be hilighted so the user has visual feedback that a selection has been made.

I also agree with #3, a selection in a cell should *not* be mirrored in the edit area.  

But, the real issue, I think, is simply the inability to select text in a cell,  bug #561706 (which was then moved here).

I can imagine not being able to select text in the cell being a deal-stopper for a new user.  

*** Bug 601804 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

The main question there is how should it be highlighted in the sheet? Both the text and background color might differ from the theme colors. There are several options:
- invert colors in selection (the appearance will be different from what you have in the expr entry widget, and not very consistent with the gtk theme)
- use colors from theme (but colors changes within the selected text will be hidden)
- other?

Otherwise, it should not be that hard to implement, IMHO.

We should also implement the possibility to extend the selection with the mouse.

+1 to
    - invert colors in selection (the appearance will be different from what you
    have in the expr entry widget, and not very consistent with the gtk theme)

The sheet is already/always inconsistent with the gtk theme.

I agree with the invert colors option.

This problem has been fixed in the development version. The fix will be available in the next major software release. Thank you for your bug report.