For larger spreadsheets, especially with considerable repetition of values, the auto-completion feature in new cells is extremely helpful. However, the algorithm for suggestions could be much smarter than it is. Consider the following very simple example spreadsheet. The first 4 cells have been filled in with values "xa", "xb", "xb", "xc", and the user is part-way through entering the data in cell A5, having typed "x". COL A ROW 1 xa ROW 2 xb ROW 3 xb ROW 4 xc ROW 5 x... Currently, the autocomplete proposes "xa". This is doing an alphabetical search back through the column A. I think that this is the worst possible algorithm to choose. A smarter choice would be "xc", i.e. a reverse-search though history starting at the current position. A possible alternative (maybe even better) would be "xb", i.e. a search for the most common match in the column. The reason why this matters to me is that I have a spreadsheet with about 1000 rows, where the columns are like the following: 1: Long string of text 2: Long string of text 3: Long string of text 4: Long string of test test 5: Long string of text 6: Long string of text 7: Long string of text [repeat for 1000 rows] 1001: Long string of text 1002: Long string of text 1003: L.... in this case, every single autocomplete is wrong, and I have to type out the entry nearly in full, just because of one line which (although it is correct), I entered 3 years ago, and it has been messing up autocomplete every day since then! -- Thanks for your time, and your work on a great program.
Hi Richard, Thanks for writing the idea. I'm not sure how that will work out in various (different) situations, but... (In reply to comment #0) > 4: Long string of test test > 5: Long string of text > 1003: L.... > > in this case, every single autocomplete is wrong, and I have to type out the > entry nearly in full, just because of one line which (although it is > correct), I entered 3 years ago, and it has been messing up autocomplete > every day since then! always Ctrl+Tab cycles through the possible autocomplete options... I think that helps in your case? Best, Cor
Ctrl-Tab does help a bit, but it's much more awkward than a smarter auto-complete. It needs 2 extra keystrokes (which aren't easy to type fast), and then we may have to Ctrl-tab multiple times. Furthermore, it's a non-discoverable and less-intuitive way to work. There is one extra refinement needed - in that we aren't always appending data at the bottom of a column; sometimes we insert in the middle or at the top. (1) Current algorithm is: Scan from top of column for match, accept the first one. (2) Improved algorithm. Scan outward (up + down) from the current cell for a match, accept the nearest one. (3) Optimised algorithm: Scan the entire column and count matches. Accept the most popular match. Given that (3) may be harder to write, and possibly worse at runtime, I think that (2) would suffice - it should be easy to write, and would catch most of the common cases.
Let's set this to NEW.
option 2 would be a nice enhancement!
I found an older report that is requesting a similar change, I will add a comment there to check this out. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 43742 ***
