GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 166651
Improve copy and paste
Last modified: 2005-04-01 03:55:27 UTC
First let me define a syntax for description of the mouse actions: mark+copy[A1:B2] means mark the cells [A1:B2], click right mouse button, select "copy" mark+paste[Range] means the same, but "paste" instead of "copy" [Range] can be [A1:B2] ... cell ranges [A:B] ..... whole rows or columns, i.e. mark the row or column headers [ ] ....... the whole sheet, i.e. mark this empty rectangle above the row headers Cases: ------ 1) one row/column to multiples mark+copy[A],mark+paste[B:C] works 2) one row/column to multiples mark+copy[A],mark+paste[B1:C1] fails 3) sheet to sheet mark+copy[ ],mark+paste[ ] fails 4) sheet to sheet mark[ ],copy[A1],mark+paste[A1] works 5) one cell to range mark+copy[A1],mark+paste[B1:C1] works 6) cell-columns/rows to rows/columns mark+copy[A1:B1],mark+paste[A2:A3] fails IMHO Case 6) is the most important in daily work. 2) and 3) have lower priority but should work to be consistant in the scope of usability: every way to mark something should also be possible to copy or paste. At least it would make XL users make it easier to change to Gnumeric. Helmut Wollmersdorfer
What is (6) supposed to do? Transpose the data? Under which circumstances would you like data to be transposed?
No, not transposed. They should be replicated. Assume A B C 1 x y z 2 v 3 w After (6) it should be A B C 1 x y z 2 x y v 3 x y w Assume A1:R1 filled with some formulas. If you want to replicate them into some other 5 lines (e.g. 13:17), the shortest way is to mark A13:A17 and paste. This is was XL and OO do. Now in Gnumeric someone has to count (by hand) cells, if the whole row can not be copied. Case (6) is similar to case (5), but with a source-range 1 row, multiple colums (or 1 column, multiple rows) to a target-range multiple rows, multiple columns.
[3] : fails how ? [6] : I don't think auto transpose is a good idea, but you can use paste-special to do what you want
Helmut, It hadn't occurred to me that you would want to paste _outside_ of the current selection. This semms to be rather dangerous to me. I am already worried about the analysis tools writing outside the target range. Note that gnumeric does replication but only if it fits into the current selection. So mark+copy[A],mark+paste[B:C] works. Why is mark+copy[A],mark+paste[B1:C1] more desirable? [3] seems to work for me.
(3) is not possible. The workaround is - mark[ ] - move mouse cursor over Header or Grid - mouse right click -> copy The mouse-right-click[ ] does not work. As written in above, 2) + 3) have lower priority, and would only provide convenience.
Some patches have gone in for other bugs that simplify the tiling algorithm and make us more flexible pasting full cols/rows. They will be in 1.5.1 *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 87477 ***