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List:       koffice
Subject:    Features for KSpread
From:       Oliver Lemke <oliver.lemke () kassel ! netsurf ! de>
Date:       1999-05-09 9:18:00
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Hi,

I want to contribute to the work on KSpraed, but as I am no C-Coder, I
think I only can contribute some thoughts about features that would be
nice for the KOffice-Spreadsheet.

First of all, some kind of autogenerated data-input-mask would be useful
for those who have to type in lots of data. This is especially useful
for data-base-like tables that store the "database fields" in their
columns and the "data-sets" in their rows. This function should analyse
the table and generate an input-dialog with input-fields for the columns
of the table and navigation-controls for navigating through the
data-sets (i.e. the rows of the table). It should also contain a search
function. Later on, we should consider a feature to hide the table which
stores the data or even the whole KSpread excluding the data-input
dialog. This could then be some kind of a "minimal data-base"
application.

Also pretty handy is Excel's auto-completition of inputs in cells. For
all of those who don't use excel, this features tries to "automagically"
complete an unfinished input in a cell by looking up the table for a
simliar expression. E.g. if you entered "KOffice" in a cell before and
start typing "KO" in a different cell, Excel expands your input to
"KOffice". The auto-completed part of the input is displayed as selected
text so you can easily overwrite it by typing in more text. I think we
should implement it a little more Unix-like, maybe it should be possible
to trigger the auto-completition-feature by hitting the <TAB>-key like
being in a bash-shell.

Maybe we could implement also something like an input-restriction that
only allows limited expressions as valid inputs. I had to implement this
in Visual-"it-sucks"-Basic for Applications some months ago at work. We
performed a traffic-accountment (?? de: "Verkehrserhebung") and hired
some students to type in the data in Excel. The problem was, that some
of them weren't form that region and didn't always know the correct
spelling of the travelling-destinations the (railway-)passangers were
asked for. So we had 12 "Altmorschen", 15 "Aldmorschen" an 20
"Altmorchen" in our table! ;-) With an input-restriction you colud only
allow "Altmorschen" (the correct spelling) as a valid input, every other
input is rejected. The allowed inputs should be stored in a different
tabel.

What do you think of these features?

BTW: Who is the maintainer of KSpread at the moment?

Oli

--
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   Oliver Lemke, TU Braunschweig
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