Bug 87787 - Improve cell border assignment
Summary: Improve cell border assignment
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LibreOffice (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: Other All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 107616 107674 108234 108255 139455 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Cell-Border Table-Borders Toolbar-Border-Controls
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Reported: 2014-12-28 10:29 UTC by Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired)
Modified: 2023-09-24 15:15 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

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Description Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-12-28 10:29:48 UTC
Not sure if this should be considered a bug or an enhancement, bug setting cell borders in writer and calc are a major pain because cells that share the same border visually can have different border settings and these border dont play nicely together.

For writer, if you insert a table of 3x3, and in cell B2 you set the borders to none, the left and bottom borders show as transparent but not the top and right. I'm assuming the way the cells are being draw to make up the table maybe causing it to look like this, as unfortunately there isnt a means for me to open up the cell properties and see exactly what is going on. In order to achieve what is intended, a user will likely have to jump through many hoops to get the way it should be.

For calc, select a number of cells (e.g. C7:F16), and set their inner and outer borders, then select one of the cells (e.g. E12) in the changed cells and set its borders to none. You wont visually see a difference because the cells around it all have their borders on. So in order to achieve what is intended, a user will have to go to each of the 4 cells around it, open up the formatting cell dialog and disable the related sides.

So the simple solution is that when a cell border is set or unset in any manner (border width, style, color, etc), that its neighboring cells must also be set or unset in the same way.
Comment 1 A (Andy) 2014-12-28 18:17:26 UTC
(In reply to Jay Philips from comment #0)
> Not sure if this should be considered a bug or an enhancement, bug setting
> cell borders in writer and calc are a major pain because cells that share
> the same border visually can have different border settings and these border
> dont play nicely together.
> 
> For writer, if you insert a table of 3x3, and in cell B2 you set the borders
> to none, the left and bottom borders show as transparent but not the top and
> right. I'm assuming the way the cells are being draw to make up the table
> maybe causing it to look like this, as unfortunately there isnt a means for
> me to open up the cell properties and see exactly what is going on. In order
> to achieve what is intended, a user will likely have to jump through many
> hoops to get the way it should be.

Strange and interesting.  I did not recognized it before in WRITER.  But for me this is inconsistent and a buggy behaviour, because I see no reason for it.  

> For calc, select a number of cells (e.g. C7:F16), and set their inner and
> outer borders, then select one of the cells (e.g. E12) in the changed cells
> and set its borders to none. You wont visually see a difference because the
> cells around it all have their borders on. So in order to achieve what is
> intended, a user will have to go to each of the 4 cells around it, open up
> the formatting cell dialog and disable the related sides.

This is for me also inconsistent and a buggy behaviour, because I can't see any reason yet.  Maybe anybody else has a good explanation?  For me as a normal user this is buggy and annoying.  It is inconsistent for me, because inside a table I have borders to distinct between cells.  If I want to change it, why do I have to change it from "both" sides?  And in CALC I have also similar effect as in WRITER.  If I set in a number of cells inner and outer borders and then select only one cell within them and change the colour of the total outer border it gets only changed at the top and on the left.
 
> So the simple solution is that when a cell border is set or unset in any
> manner (border width, style, color, etc), that its neighboring cells must
> also be set or unset in the same way.

I would agree.  At least I don't have any idea yet, why it should not.
Maybe anybody else has also any further thoughts about these issues?


@Markus: Can you maybe also help with this issue?  Do you have an explanation?  What are thoughts about it?
Comment 2 Markus Mohrhard 2014-12-28 18:39:05 UTC
I won't touch any border code anymore.

This is an enhancement but one that will at least on the calc side never be implemented.
Comment 3 A (Andy) 2014-12-28 18:52:44 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 4 Cor Nouws 2014-12-28 19:50:32 UTC
(In reply to Jay Philips from comment #0)

> So the simple solution is that when a cell border is set or unset in any
> manner (border width, style, color, etc), that its neighboring cells must
> also be set or unset in the same way.

I agree that it's inconvenient, but one can also think of use cases where it's handy that setting all borders of one cell does not affect those of the adjacent ones.
This maybe eases the pain some may feel by Markus respons.
(I've seen from a distance the pain various developers had to get borders work as well as possible and improve interoperability too...)
Comment 5 Roeland 2016-06-27 16:49:40 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 6 Roeland 2016-06-27 17:43:26 UTC
Should be bug 34449. I think the fixing of that bug closes this one as well.
Comment 7 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2016-06-28 00:02:43 UTC
Bug 34449 fixes this issue in dialog, while this bug report is about being able to do it in the borders group button in the toolbar, the place where most people will be making the change.
Comment 8 Heiko Tietze 2016-06-28 06:46:20 UTC
There have been a couple of requests recently. My opinion on bug 100549, comment 3.
Comment 9 Roeland 2016-06-28 18:16:53 UTC
Hi Yousuf, while I don't necessarely agree about the toolbar option being the most used I understand your sentiment.

As the improvement in 5.2 solves the core of this issue, shouldn't the toolbar and dialog functionality be merged then?

ps: this applies for other dialogs as well, for example "background (color)".
Comment 10 Telesto 2017-05-07 18:18:39 UTC
*** Bug 107674 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 Kevin 2017-05-07 21:32:52 UTC
The core issue is still present in the most recent 5.3 release

1. add a bottom border to Cell 1A
2. right click Cell 2A and choose Format Cells ...

bug: the border applied in step 1 cannot be edited in spite of the fact that there is no functional distinction between a bottom border of 1A and a top border of 2A.

3. ask a friend to look at your spreadsheet and edit the border - he/she will only pick the correct cell 50% of the time

bug: This is just wrong. This kind of thing is precisely why Excel is so bad and why there's so much demand for a smarter program like Calc.

Also note that to test these steps I had to wait about 15 seconds for the Format Cells dialog to be drawn.
Comment 12 Buovjaga 2017-05-08 05:37:31 UTC
*** Bug 107616 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 13 Kevin 2017-06-30 06:40:40 UTC Comment hidden (abusive)
Comment 14 Heiko Tietze 2017-08-08 12:37:08 UTC
*** Bug 108255 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 15 Heiko Tietze 2017-08-08 12:37:37 UTC
Please also check the discussion on bug 108255.
Comment 16 Xisco Faulí 2018-10-19 12:21:44 UTC
*** Bug 108234 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 17 Xisco Faulí 2020-03-09 13:28:01 UTC
Please add keyword 'needsUXEval' and CC 'libreoffice-ux-advise@lists.freedesktop.org' if input from UX is needed.
Comment 18 Buovjaga 2021-02-06 10:30:09 UTC
*** Bug 139455 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 19 Buovjaga 2022-05-12 07:51:57 UTC
*** Bug 107674 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 20 Dieter 2022-05-12 08:07:29 UTC
I've changed component to LibreOffice, because the description says "setting cell borders in writer and calc are a major pain" and comments talk about both.