Bug 59585 - EDITING: Enhancement request: Create merged cells by dragging the handle
Summary: EDITING: Enhancement request: Create merged cells by dragging the handle
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Attila Szűcs
URL:
Whiteboard: BSA target:7.1.0
Keywords:
: 79042 85322 86908 119817 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Calc-Merge-Split 40993
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2013-01-19 13:46 UTC by webofht-libreofficebugs002
Modified: 2020-09-30 13:53 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description webofht-libreofficebugs002 2013-01-19 13:46:42 UTC
Problem description: According to LibreOffice Version 3.4 Calc Guide , "a shortcut way to fill cells is to grab the “handle” in the lower right-hand corner of the cell". Actually, it is not possible to copy a merged cell in Calc and paste the merged cell by dragging the handle, and to create another merged cell at the same time. 

Steps to reproduce:
1. The operating system used is Linux debian 2.6.32-5-686 #1 SMP Sun Sep 23 09:49:36 UTC 2012 i686 GNU/Linux.
2. The LibreOffice versions involved are:
- LibreOffice Version 3.6.4.3 (Build ID: 2ef5aff) (LO3.6.4.3)
- LibreOffice Version 4.0.0.1 (Build ID: 527dba6f6e0cfbbc71bd6e7b88a52699bb48799) (LO4.0.0.1)
3. File -> New -> Spreadsheet
4. Select A1:B1 -> Format -> Merge Cells -> Merge Cells
5. Type the letter a in A1:B1. -> Enter
6. Select A1:B1. 
7. Drag the handle to the right to copy and paste the content.
8. C1:D1 is not a merged cell.
9. The letter a in A1:B1 appears separately in C1 and D1.
10. Select A1:B1.
11. Drag the handle downwards to copy and paste the content.
12. A2:B2 is not a merged cell.
13. The letter a in A1:B1 appears separately in A2 and A3.

Current behavior: Users cannot create another merged cell by dragging the handle of an existing merged cell.

Expected behavior: Users can create another merged cell by dragging the handle of an existing merged cell.

Regards,
C. H. D.
Operating System: Debian
Version: 4.0.0.1 rc
Comment 1 m_a_riosv 2013-01-19 22:21:49 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 2 Joel Madero 2013-01-20 00:01:48 UTC
Confirmed. 

Marking as:
New (confirmed)
Enhancement
High (merged cells pretty common, copying these should work as expected which is to carry the merge with the copy/paste and/or drag - copy/paste works as expect, dragging does not)
Comment 3 m_a_riosv 2014-05-22 21:23:15 UTC
*** Bug 79042 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 kloud 2014-06-22 09:13:52 UTC
A decision has to be made, whether formatting should be carried over or not. Ideally, the user should be able to chose. If that was implemented, Bug 40993 would be resolved, too.
Comment 5 m_a_riosv 2014-12-01 23:42:00 UTC
*** Bug 86908 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 6 Marina Latini (SUSE) 2015-04-13 14:27:38 UTC
JFYI:

I tested the behaviour of MS Office 365 and with Excel you can drag merged cells as specified in the "Expected behavior" of the Description.

Tested with Office 365:
* Version: 15.0.4701.1002
* Locale: it_IT
* OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 x86
Comment 7 Joel Madero 2016-02-26 19:34:44 UTC Comment hidden (no-value)
Comment 8 m_a_riosv 2018-09-12 12:02:44 UTC
*** Bug 119817 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Timur 2018-12-24 17:27:48 UTC
*** Bug 85322 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 10 Commit Notification 2020-09-30 08:31:23 UTC
Attila Szűcs committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/1ed04c2029218619aab2f3422130c890f67f309c

tdf#40993 tdf#59585 sc fill: copy merged cell structure

It will be available in 7.1.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 11 Attila Szűcs 2020-09-30 13:53:48 UTC
This fix does not handle filtred row case...
If you have an idea how to fill merged cells through hidden rows, please create a new bug ticket explaining the desired workflow.

This seems to be an impossible case.. even excel does not handle every possible case well.

If we fill 1x2 merged cells down.. we should see 1x2 cells no matter if there is filtered row or not... And the hided cells should not change by the fill.

If there is a filtered row in the middle of a now copyied 1x2 cell.. then  turning off the filtering should unhide the filtered row.. 
what should we display then? 
we would expect to see the previously hidden cell in the center with its old value ... and around it the merged cell... like:

-----
merged cell upper half
-----
previously hidden cell
-----
merged cell lower half
-----

In this case Excel does simply drop the lower half of the merged cell.
But in LO we can have important data even in the lower half of the merged cell... like data for other cells formulas... do we want to drop that too?

more complex problem is when we fill down 2 columns with different merged cells.. like left column is 1x2 cell.. and right column is 1x1 + 1x1 cell
normally they would be aligned to each other .. 
but if a hidden row would cut a merged cell in half only in 1 column.. then the next filled merged cells move 1 cell upper... while the other column stay the same..