Bug 87212 - Enhancement: realtime formula highlighting
Summary: Enhancement: realtime formula highlighting
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: Other All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 93633 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Cell-Formula
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2014-12-11 03:36 UTC by Luke
Modified: 2018-04-29 07:04 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
How calc should look when in the process of creating or editing a formula (57.66 KB, image/png)
2014-12-11 03:36 UTC, Luke
Details
Same formula typed in Google Sheets vs Calc (149.42 KB, image/png)
2014-12-11 03:46 UTC, Luke
Details
WPS Sheets and Gnumeric in the process of entering a new formula (200.66 KB, image/png)
2014-12-11 08:32 UTC, Luke
Details

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Description Luke 2014-12-11 03:36:43 UTC
Created attachment 110705 [details]
How calc should look when in the process of creating or editing a formula

Calc’s UI for highlighting cells of existing formulas is brilliant. But when you are in the process of creating or editing a formula, the colored highlights don’t show to help you.

For example, if you type =SUM(A1+A2+A3) in Cell B3, no cells are highlighted and the formula has no matching color. To see the colors and corresponding cells, you need to finish the formula and double click on the cell. Any attempt to edit the formula will cause the colors and highlights to disappear. 

If we could make the colors persist and update to match the new formula, it would be much easier to debug and create new formulas. For an inspiration as to how this could work, try most other spreadsheets like WPS Sheets or Gnumeric. Notice how the colors in the formula and corresponding cell highlights update as you create or edit formulas.
Comment 1 Luke 2014-12-11 03:46:47 UTC
Created attachment 110707 [details]
Same formula typed in Google Sheets vs Calc

I typed the same formula in Google Sheets and Calc in cell B3. Note how Sheets highlights each cell and colors the formula while you are in the process of creating the formula.
Comment 2 Luke 2014-12-11 08:32:50 UTC
Created attachment 110726 [details]
WPS Sheets and Gnumeric in the process of entering a new formula
Comment 3 raal 2014-12-11 10:26:42 UTC
Valid enhancement
Comment 4 raal 2015-08-24 21:00:23 UTC
*** Bug 93633 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 Luke 2018-04-28 17:32:35 UTC
Szymon Kłos has been working on highlighting colors in Bug 116241.

Also still no formula highlighting while composing a formula in 6.1.