Hi,
I've just begun using the spreadsheet program in Open Office, and I've found
a few little things I wish it could do. I might even be able to write some
of it in C++. These don't necessarily have to be in everyone's version of
the software, I just wish it were available to me. But these are simple:
Icon for number format: time: There are icon sets at the tops of the
screen, some of which apply number formats to your cells: one for currency
(you can set this to your local default, it seems), one for percent, one for
dates, etc. I wanted one for time, so found it in the customize icon sets
menu, but it had no icon associated with it. So I chose modify change
icon... and searched around to find a little clock, and it's perfect.
Maybe you should make the clock a default instead of the words number
format: time.
Choose default date and time formats: The above-mentioned icons for date
and time formats automatically change numbers into dates or times, which is
great, but it always does it in the same format: 08/29/09 or 12:34:56 PM
(respectively). I want to be able to choose the default formats, which are
not those ones.
Option to remove or hide extraneous options: What prompts this for me
specifically was that I was scrolling through the available date formats to
find my favorite, and I had to scroll past all of these Jewish date formats
to discover that my favorite was not on your list. I was able to create my
own format to use, which is great, but it now appears at the very bottom of
the list, so every time I want to choose it, I have to scroll past all those
Jewish dates again. Now, I have no problem with Jewish dates (or any other
calendars, for that matter), but I'm almost certainly never going to use
them, so I wish I could just remove them from the list, or hide them
somewhere out of the way. Or re-arrange the list to my liking, so I don't
have to keep scrolling past them.
Change date codes: In writing my own date code, I was happily impressed
with the options available to me, and I went to your help file to see what
all of my choices were. However, I encountered an interesting decision by
whomever wrote the codes for what would appear when you made dates.
Specifically:
D -- Day as 2
DD -- Day as 02
NN or DDD -- Day as Sun-Sat
NNN or -- Day as Sunday to Saturday
-- Day followed by comma, as in Sunday,
Now, I like that typing either 'N's or 'D's will get you the day of the
week, but who decided that 3 D's is the same as 2 N's? Sometimes it's very
important to know the day of the week, and not just the calendar date, so
I'm happy we have the option of showing the day of the week within the date.
However, in the spirit of minimizing space, it's good to be able to
abbreviate, showing Sat instead of Saturday, for instance. But this can
be further abbreviated, as I'm sure you've seen on office calendars and
schedules and such:
M - Monday
T - Tuesday
W - Wednesday
R or H - Thursday
F - Friday
Obviously, this is not an ideal system, since there are several days
containing an R, and this system doesn't do much for the non-work days of
Saturday and Sunday. Nevertheless, this is a system in use by some people,
so I believe it should be represented by typing one N.
Another alternative to this one-letter abbreviation system is a two-letter
system which is far more understandable: Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa, Su. This
is what I like to use, because it clearly shows the day of the week while
using the smallest space possible. So I would like 2 N's to show this
format, rather than 2 N's giving you a 3-letter day of the week. It seems
far more sensible that one N give you a one-letter day-name, 2 N's give you
a two-letter name, 3 N's give you a three-letter name, and 4 N's give you a
long name.
Again, I could easily write some of this into C++, but I mostly wish I could
just make it work this way on my computer so I don't have to bother all of
the other millions of users if they don't want these changes. So please let
me know how I can help, or how you can help me. Oh, and also let me know
where the best repository is for these types of requests: I searched around
on your web-site and this was the best thing I came up with.
Thanks so much!
--Eric
--
Eric Kindig
ekin...@gmail.com
www.FaceBook.com/EKindig
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