Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 55175
Default text alignment should follow sheet language direction
Last modified: 2013-08-07 15:12:27 UTC
In Calc it is now possible to use Right To Left (RTL) oriented sheets. This is used by people who use RTL languages, and naturally most of their text is in their (RTL) language. However currently calc interprets the "default horizontal alignment" of text cells always to be Left To Right. This means that RTL users need to force right alignment for every text cell in their sheets. The correct behavior should be that "default horizontal alignment" for text cells will depend on the orientation of the sheet Left for LTR, Right for RTL.
Not a defect but an RFE. Re-assigned to requirements
I'm sorry but this is a DEFECT (of course you may call any request to fix bug a requirement, but this is still a bug). When a sheet is RTL, default text alignment must be to the right. Text that is aligned to the left is confusing, is truncated at the right cell border (which means the beginning of the text isn't shown), and causes havoc in files imported from MS Excel. In short, the current behavior produces INCORRECT results - therefore it is a BUG. If that is not enought, it also goes against users' natural expectations, and it differs from the (correct) behavior of the most popular application in the market.
Hi, as it has never worked, this is an enhancement and has to go it's way as such. You may feel that this is a defect, but from the developers view it's not. This system is mainly for developers to track the work to be done, so the developers point of view is the one which counts, at least in this case. Frank
>> as it has never worked, this is an enhancement Huh? If something has been defective since the beginning, then it's not a bug but an enhancement request? Funny. Suppose that importing tables from Word has always produced broken tables in Writer, how would you call a request to fix it - defect report or enhacement request? And how would you call a scenario where tables (sheets) imported from Excel are broken in Calc? This is exactly the problem here - Calc assumes a WRONG alignment for RTL sheets, so both imported and new sheets are BROKEN. Just to drive the point home - I want to switch my office to OpenOffice, but people just refuse to use Calc. They are frustrated when they import Excel sheets and get scrambled results, and they are annoyed to be forced to fix alignment manually, both for imported and new sheets. Call it an enhancement if you like, it's still a defect from both user and developer perspective. I won't change the issue type, I'll leave that to you. PS - I understand perfectly well how developers work and think - I've been a developer for 25 years or so, and I still am in the business. When something produces a wrong result, especially when compared to a similar program which produces the correct result, then it is a defect.
Is anyone following this? Any chance this annoying problem will be fixed in version 3.0 ?
as long as no assignee has been found for this issue, the target cannot be set to a release target, re set it to OOo Later again.