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Bug 663671 - cell Autocompletion: have a setting for minimum number of characters
cell Autocompletion: have a setting for minimum number of characters
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: Gnumeric
Classification: Applications
Component: Main System
1.10.x
Other All
: Low minor
: ---
Assigned To: Jody Goldberg
Jody Goldberg
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2011-11-09 07:47 UTC by julien.t43+gnome
Modified: 2011-11-10 10:11 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description julien.t43+gnome 2011-11-09 07:47:58 UTC
Trying to switch from Openoffice spreadsheet to GNUmeric, I find autocompletion behavior different and I can't adapted my way.

I found prior discussions on this (but no bugs)
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=140988&archive=yes
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnumeric-list/2002-April/msg00044.html
http://us.generation-nt.com/answer/bug-242528-gnumeric-autocomplete-does-not-work-help-165050811.html

And I second the creation of a preference/setting "Minimum number of characters for autocompletion (-1 to turn it off)" because I think there are situations when you want to do it quick and some when autocompletion should be off/more strict.

Thanks
Comment 1 Andreas J. Guelzow 2011-11-09 08:44:46 UTC
-1 to turn it off? So you would think that 0 or 1 are allowable settings? How would autocompletion on 0 characters look like?
Comment 2 Andreas J. Guelzow 2011-11-09 08:50:54 UTC
Note that http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnumeric-list/2002-April/msg00044.html requested the ablity to turn off autocompletion. This can be done in the view properties (or in edit->preferences->tools for future views).

The issue of http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=140988&archive=yes has been fixed a very very long time in 1.1.16.
Comment 3 julien.t43+gnome 2011-11-09 08:53:30 UTC
I don't really mind the details. I have copied it from link above.

If you want to be more precise, I think acceptable effect should be
* off (no autocompletion)
* n characters, probably restricted between 1 and 8.
0 could be off and above 8 probably makes little sense for making typing faster
but why not. 8 is an arbitrary choice of mine which need to be reviewed.
1 was default behavior seen in archive, and is openoffice behavior
4 would be default value (current)

It's not a bug about disabling autocompletion, just to customize it the way, each user wants at a given time.
Comment 4 Andreas J. Guelzow 2011-11-09 09:10:11 UTC
Currently Gnumeric uses a fixed value of 3 (and past discussions make it unlikely that any of the regular developers will spend time making this configurable.)
Comment 5 julien.t43+gnome 2011-11-09 09:13:43 UTC
Ok. thanks for the input, even if not very satisfying ...
Comment 6 Andreas J. Guelzow 2011-11-09 17:41:34 UTC
Just out of curiosity, if you could configure it which value (number of characters) would you use?
Comment 7 julien.t43+gnome 2011-11-10 00:43:10 UTC
For my current document, 1 because it's the behavior I had with OpenOffice and it's faster. But I agree, efficiency depends a lot on what kind of data you are manipulating, that's why I would say it can change from time to time.

I quickly check history but didn't found the bug entry relate to the move from 1 to 3 minimum characters.
auto complete code seems here
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnumeric/tree/src/workbook-edit.c?id=69665bb8f1b7c88fb88d91a4dd7936fc25c5209b
Need to find where is coming wb->priv->auto_max_size

strange. on my ubuntu, source code is in wbc-gtk-edit.c but it's 1.10.13

initial related commit is here
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnumeric/commit/src?id=aa13320638514348376cbeacb3597ba8fb954db0
but I didn't see the minimum character value anywhere. wrong place ?
Comment 8 Andreas J. Guelzow 2011-11-10 04:24:15 UTC
The bug that changed the require number of characters to 3 was bug #55026.

The code of interest is in 
complete_sheet_search_iteration
Comment 9 Andreas J. Guelzow 2011-11-10 07:25:24 UTC
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.
Comment 10 julien.t43+gnome 2011-11-10 10:11:31 UTC
ok. seen your code
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnumeric/commit/src?id=3b31a5f3977883fbe89cb897327588c441478c3d

Thanks a lot Andreas :-)