Date: prev next · Thread: first prev next last
2014 Archives by date, by thread · List index


In a recent "Macro's in Libre Calc" thread, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak, an expert on macros, wrote:

"Be certain to only do what you really need to do using a macro, and then let things such as formulas do the rest of the work."

Good advice, which I would like to take further. It is frustrating, as a user, not to be able to use formulas to do things that a macro could do. I'd like to propose as a (long-term) design aim:

"Enrich the functionality of Calc to enable formulas and similar to do what currently needs a macro. Use experience gained to influence the OpenFormula specification."

As a simple example, take REPLACE
    REPLACE("Text"; Position; Length; "NewText")
My spreadsheets would be greatly simplified if Text and NewText could be regular expressions. Currently, either I have to use macros, or use SEARCH, which does support regular expressions, and code the NewText regular expression myself. It's frustrating as the code to do what I want is in the Edit -> Find & Replace... dialog. Note that the enhanced REPLACE would be OpenFormula compliant. Another example is character editing within a cell: I realise that this is more demanding technically.

I seek feedback, advice and, I hope, support. In particular:
1. Are there design aims, or similar, in LibreOffice? If so, who owns them: does the Engineering Steering Committee have a role here? 2. Should we progress the strategic aspects first? Or should I propose tactical enhancements such as the one to REPLACE above?
3.    How should I push this forward, whether tactically or strategically?

David Lynch


--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted

Context


Privacy Policy | Impressum (Legal Info) | Copyright information: Unless otherwise specified, all text and images on this website are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. This does not include the source code of LibreOffice, which is licensed under the Mozilla Public License (MPLv2). "LibreOffice" and "The Document Foundation" are registered trademarks of their corresponding registered owners or are in actual use as trademarks in one or more countries. Their respective logos and icons are also subject to international copyright laws. Use thereof is explained in our trademark policy.