GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 346131
Sorting does not preserve formats (color, font, text style)
Last modified: 2007-11-20 08:47:27 UTC
Enter some data (and matching formatting): 5 bold 1 italic 3 yellow background Check "sorting preserves formats" and then sort. I expected the formats to be preserved, but they were not, they get scrambled! Other information: I think the main problem is confusing wording. Maybe reverse the sense of this control, and make it read: [ ] Move cell formatting along with the cell contents See also Bug #134983
It would also be helpful if the gnumeric remembered the prior setting of [X] preserve, rather than defaulting to the default each and every time.
Isn't the point of a "default" to be defaulted to? Do you realize that you can choose the default in the preferences? Personally I prefer dialogs to always come up in a well defined state rather than having to check every time what the settings are, just in case that I changed something last time.
Perhaps it would help to have a little icon of some sort, which marks controls that *can* be set via prefences. I did not realize THIS one could be. And I wish that "sort range has a header" would be.
Perhaps it would help to have a little icon of some sort, which marks controls that *can* be set via prefences. I did not realize THIS one could be. And I wish that "sort range has a header" would be. Regardless, the wording is still confusing ("preserves formats" means it messes them up ? :-).
No "preserve formats" means it doesn't touch them. I don't think that: Move cell formatting along with the cell contents is any clearer. For example: Hello make this _cell_ bold World make the letters "orl" bold here we go Now select these five cells and sort them with "preserve formats" switch on: you get: go this _cell_ is still bold hello here we world "orl" is still bold so we didn't touch the formatting, the formats attached to content stayed with the content, the formatting attached to the cell stayed with the cell. We really would want more fine grained control since users typically want to move all text formatting with the content, hyperlinks withthe content but outlines (attached to the cells) should stay with the cell location. See also 100541
I agree that one frequently wants the outlines to stay. But I argue that wanting to move formatting is the typical case. And that "preserve" as a verb here is confusing -- the distinction between attached to content and attached to the cell is obvious only to geeks.
I am very open to change this to any other (correct) formulation. Unfortunately "Move cell formatting along with the cell contents" does not work because in my example the boldness of "orl" will always move along witht he content while hyperlinks, general text formatting and borders stick together (unless the whole "style" part of Gnumeric is rewritten. :-(
Hmmmm. Up for a radical change? How about: [X] Move cell borders along with cell. As the only preference control? As for rewording the current one, perhaps [x] Leave cell decoration in place
It's a complicated problem, GUI-wise. We almost never would want to move borders. If the region is alternating two background colours then you would not want that mixed up either. If someone coloured a single background red to highlight it, one would like that to stick. Most foreground colours one would likely want to have moved. One checkbox isn't going to cover all that.
note that with the exception of the choice of words for the checkbox in the dialog: [x] Leave cell decoration in place versus the current [ ] sorting preserves formats this is a duplicate of 303408
*** Bug 431293 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 303408 ***