Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: How to change Writer form letter database connection

On 12/10/16 05:33 AM, Alexander Thurgood wrote:
> Le 11/10/2016 à 19:45, Gary Dale a écrit :
>
> Hi Gary,
>
> > In fact, I can't think of a reason for the current behaviour. Why should
> > switching data sources do that instead of the more sensible behaviour of
> > picking up the data from fields with the same name in the new data source?
> Being cynical, no doubt because that would actually be a useful and
> intuitive behaviour, at least insofar as the field names and field data
> types are the same, and LO is still in many aspects not very intuitive
> for the user, especially with stuff like database mailmerge.
>
> What you are looking for could be made the subject of a bug request for
> enhancement. From my point of view as a QAer, I'd find that a valid
> request (if it hasn't already been made - I haven't checked).
>
>
> Note that the behaviour with regard to mailmerge documents changed
> recently-ish from that originally present in previous iterations of LO.
> Previously, the Writer document which included field references only
> linked via a reference to the datasource. Nowadays, the Writer document
> includes the datasource at least where that datasource is a spreadsheet,
> text or CSV file (or at least, that is my understanding of it). This
> might be why the change you effected didn't show up until you re-opened
> the document. There is still some kind of inconsisten weirdness in there
> in some cases with regard to older Writer documents that were made
> before the change to integrate the datasource, but I haven't managed to
> nail it down yet. Perhaps someone else has.

Perhaps they were thinking of allowing links to multiple data sources 
(I'm not sure how that would work)? Otherwise I can't see any 
justification to include the data source in the document.

From decades of experience with form letters, I know that the office 
staff typically use a (frequently manually) generated list to drive the 
mail merge rather than a database query. It's often a spreadsheet and 
the staff know how to title the columns so it works. The spreadsheets 
are always given unique names so including the name, let alone the path, 
would be counterproductive.

LibreOffice lets you register databases so I have a nice list to choose 
from that I can give meaningful names - like "2015results", 
"2016results", etc. for lists that I may access frequently. For most 
merges even registering the database would be a useless chore since they 
are frequently one-time lists.

Anyway, just using the field names and assuming the users know what they 
are doing strikes me as the more reasonable approach. I'll file a 
"feature request" to that effect.

Thanks.

--
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