Description: If a cell is formatted as text, a formula entered into the cell will be parsed as text and not a formula. Nonetheless, when editing, formula help still appears, namely keyword completion suggestions and reference cell highlighting. This could be confusing to the user. Since (as a separate issue) it may not be obvious that a cell is formatted as text when entering a formula, the lack of formula help may be a clue to the user to remove the text formatting before entering their formula. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Format a cell as text. 2. Start entering a formula, e.g. "=a" and keyword completion hints will pop up ("[ABS], ACCRINT ..."). 3. Finish entering a formula that includes a cell reference and press Return. 4. Select the formula again (F2, double-click cell, single click formula bar) and the cell references will be highlighted, even though they are not being parsed. Actual Results: Explained inline above. Expected Results: It may be clearer if, for cells formatted as text, keyword completion hints and cell reference highlighting are not shown. Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: Version: 7.3.7.2 / LibreOffice Community Build ID: 30(Build:2) CPU threads: 16; OS: Linux 5.19; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3 Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-GB Ubuntu package version: 1:7.3.7-0ubuntu0.22.04.3 Calc: threaded
In my opinion, formula help should be displayed even if the cell is formatted as text. I can imagine users wanting to _show_ a formula instead of computing its result, and needing the tooltips to make sure the syntax is correct and to write it faster thanks to autocomplete. So I would close as "not a bug". UX/Design team, what do you think?
(In reply to Stéphane Guillou (stragu) from comment #1) > In my opinion, formula help should be displayed even if the cell is > formatted as text. I can imagine users wanting to _show_ a formula instead > of computing its result, and needing the tooltips to make sure the syntax is > correct and to write it faster thanks to autocomplete. > > So I would close as "not a bug". > UX/Design team, what do you think? What about the cell reference highlighting, though? It seems to be more misleading.
This topic was on the agenda of the design meeting. In addition to what has been commented here I wonder what workflow makes it necessary to not show formula tooltips. The opposite would be when the user adds formula but wants to execute it later. So let's keep it.