Enhanced formula input

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issue:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=20496





------- Additional comments from discoleoopenoffice.org Fri Oct 20 01:06:52 -0700 2006 -------
[QUOTE]
> +abcd    => if it generates an error then it is
shown as an error (similar to
> what excel does) - probably the user made a typo!
(consider this, =inf("system") 
> generates an error then why shouldn't
+inf("system") generate an error?)

This is exactly what I hate at Excel. I am working very much
with strings and it
is annoying to generate formulas on the fly.

 - '+abcd' is definetely NOT intended to be a formula
 - it should be a string
 - IF there is a mistyping, THEN
   -- the user HAS to come back to correct the error
   -- so having it as a string is the same as having it as a
formula
   -- because Calc would NOT have changed the string
   -- (i.e. it is different from 36373+34737, where you
wouldn't be able to
correct one of the numbers, because Calc would already added
them up)
 - WHEN correcting a 'should be formula', you are again in
the particular cell
and the input routine would(/could) change it back to
formula mode (there is
still the '+' in front of the string), so there is NO need
to make an erroneous
formula

Just my thaughts.

There was another issue (applies even for the official OOo
2.04).
 - '+4':
   -- currently it is transformed to the plain number '4'
   -- we do NOT need a formula for simple numbers
   -- however, when working with categorical data, there
might exist categories
of '+4', '+3', which are different from '4', '3'
   -- I would have liked that this be converted to string

So, I think, this issue should be viewed as a more general
approach to format
the input in Calc (and NOT just the simple formula enter
mode)


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