Bug 154947

Summary:	Editing a formula should not remove range overlays; instead they should be updated
Product:	LibreOffice	Reporter:	Rafael Lima <rafael.palma.lima>
Component:	Calc	Assignee:	Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE
Severity:	enhancement	CC:	libreoffice-ux-advise, miguelangelrv
Priority:	medium	Keywords:	needsUXEval
Version:	7.6.0.0 alpha0+
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Whiteboard:
Crash report or crash signature:		Regression By:

Description Rafael Lima 2023-04-20 22:50:10 UTC

In Calc, suppose you enter a formula in cell A2:

=SUMPRODUCT(B2:B9;C2:C9)

After you press enter, the formula result is displayed.

Now suppose you want to edit the formula. For that you either double-click cell A2 or select cell A2 and press F2. When you do this, two overlays are shown for each of the ranges in the formula:

B2:B9 => Blue overlay
C2:C9 => Red overlay

Now the cursor is blinking, allowing to edit the formula.

The problem is that, as soon as the user types anything, both overlays are removed. This is a pain when working with formulas with multiple ranges, and you want to keep track of what is and what is not included in the formula yet.

In Excel, when you start editing the formula, all overlays are maintained and updated while the formula is edited, which is super handy.

In Google Sheets the same happens, with the added benefit that the range where the cursor is positioned gets a special highlight.

OnlyOffice behaves exactly as Excel and WPS has a similar behavior as Google Sheets, giving special highlight to the range where the cursor is positioned.

I propose we add this feature to Calc as well... it makes editing formulas much more productive.

Comment 1 m_a_riosv 2023-04-21 03:24:02 UTC

+1

I think it is already reported, but I can't find.

Comment 2 Heiko Tietze 2023-04-24 08:50:57 UTC

+1, and I found the duplicate :-)

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 38304 ***