Re: Excel ate my DNA!



On 16/07/04 08:22:04 AM, Helmut Wollmersdorfer wrote:
Nick Lamb schrieb:

Yes, in every case more or less the same problem occurs and the same fix is necessary. The user must explicitly indicate that the data being entered or imported is meaningless text, rather than allowing the software to decide
for itself.

I often was surprised - and sometimes angry - about this behaviour of Excel. It is not easy to understand by an unexperienced user.

I am not sure what is not to understand. Users seem to expect that Gnumeric `knows' that certain entries are date and/or times. In fact we get regular coments that Gnumeric mistook a date for a time (or vice versa).

In fact telling Gnumeric that all input is text is utterly trivial. (Set first column to text and copy to right.)

Now I could envision a preference setting to have the inputs assumed to be text by default.

Andreas

Better way would be, that the only default distinction is between text and numbers.

Hard to say, if Gnumeric should clone _this_ bad usability of Excel, or if Gnumeric should make it better (and be less compatible).

Helmut Wollmersdorfer


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