Description: The Function Wizard Structure Tab currently only shows the immediate structure of the formula of the currently selected cell. There is no way to "step into" / "drill down" intermediate results that are referenced from other cells or named formulas. This makes debugging complex formulas quite cumbersome. Especially if named formula are used, LO does not seem to provide any debugging tools: * "Trace precedents" and "Trace dependends" are fairly useless at detecting errors in named formulas * No tool to perform a step-by-step evaluation, like MS Excels "Evaluate Formula" tool (enhancement request #77684 was closed with "Won't Fix") * Structure tab in "Function Wizard" doesn't show the result of the evaluated named formula * Structure tab in "Function Wizard" doesn't allow to "drill down" into a formula Please either extend the "Function Wizard" to allow "drill down" into a formula, incl. display of evaluated results for named formulas. Or alternatively, reopen #77684 and provide a proper "Evaluate Formula" feature, like MS Excel has, with "Step into" and "Step out" functionality. Steps to Reproduce: 1. In the "Name Manager" create multiple named formula expression 2. Some of the formula expression should refer to other named formula expressions 3. Use a formula expression in a cell 4. Open the "Function Wizard" for that cell and switch to the "Structure" tab Actual Results: 1. Only the immediate formula of the cell is shown, no "drill down" possible 2. Referenced named formulas are only listed by name, but the evaluated value isn't displayed Consequence: Debugging/tracing complex formulas that use named formulas is basically impossible. Debugging/tracing formulas that reference other cells with formulas is possible with other tools like "Trace precedents", but is cumbersome (see attached screenshot) Expected Results: Structure tab always shows the evaluation results of all parts of the formula and provides a "drill down" (or "step into") feature, so that results and errors can be traced back to their origin. For the provided example, I'd expect to see a structure like this - = #DIV/0! * = #DIV/0! B1 = 42 named_formula = #DIV/0! (expandable for drill-down) - = #DIV/0! + = #DIV/0! B1 = 42 nested_named_formula = #DIV/0! (expandable for drill-down) * = #DIV/0! B1 = 42 named_formula_with_error = #DIV/0! (expandable for drill-down) / = #DIV/0! 42 0 another_nested_formula = 84 (expandable for drill-down) + = 84 B1 = 42 42 B4 = 42 (expandable for drill-down) / = 42 B1 = 42 B2 = 1 Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: Version: 7.2.4.1 (x64) / LibreOffice Community Build ID: 27d75539669ac387bb498e35313b970b7fe9c4f9 CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19042; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win Locale: de-CH (de_CH); UI: en-US Calc: threaded
Created attachment 177355 [details] testcase with named formulas
Created attachment 177356 [details] Screenshot with annotations
Added UX team for discussion
Sounds all good, but has been (mostly) included in bug 92416. Do you agree to make your ticket a duplicate; and you comment on the other ticket, Damian?
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 92416 ***
@(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4) > Sounds all good, but has been (mostly) included in bug 92416. Do you agree > to make your ticket a duplicate; and you comment on the other ticket, Damian? I closed it. However not quite sure about that. The other ticket is for the SIDEBAR functions pane only. There seems to be a long march ahead, before the SIDEBAR function pane can even compare to the functionality that is already there in the Function Wizard. That ticket hasn't seen any activity for almost 5 years. I'm not exactly optimistic that this is going anywhere. Maybe delivering these features in the Function Wizard is more realistic? It already has a structure view which "just" needs to be enhanced. If you think so too, please reopen the ticket.
You are right, maybe it's better to keep both.
I think we can handle the UX topics on bug 92416. (In reply to Damian Hofmann from bug 92416 comment 6) > What I do not see in the mockup yet is the ability to drill down / debug > further, into referenced cells. Sure, could be done as suggested here.