how to make a mask to view&edit the data of a spresheet?

clemens · General User Joined: 23 Oct 2008 Posts: 21

Hello,

I have been using calc for a while now, but I am still a newbie in its usage.
I have a spreadsheet with data that I would like to edit and increase.
The problem is that since the data in the cells can at times be long, it is not easy to navigate the whole sheet to do the necessary changes. The data itself is just text, no operations or functions, no colors, no merdged cells.
I was wondering if there was a way, through a mask or something similar to see the data one row at a time in the page (something more similar to this http://msaccess-dox.net/MS.Press-Microsoft.Office.Acce2/final/images/fig693_01_0.jpg or this http://www.evitherm.org/Files/685/FindingData_InputMask.gif rather than simply like this http://www.mobilechoice.com.au/images/iphone3g_spreadsheet.jpg).
Cheers

Villeroy · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 5:03 am Post subject:

Do NOT use the input form offered on extensions.openoffice.org
Its quality is horrible. It may delete parts of your data without warning. It becomes counter productive when localized data or formulas are involved.

I do not understand how Excel's data form helps you to locate any data. I find it completely useless in this respect.
I use filters or the find/replace dialog (Ctrl+F) to locate data in lists. This way I can get all matching search results in one go.

Excel's data form provides some extra functionality most of its users do not even notice: It inserts new rows for records, so all references do adjust to the new list size. SUM(A1:A99) becomes SUM(A1:A100). Additionally, it detects formulas and copies down existing formulas to the newly inserted row.
Excel's data does not provide the editing features of the underlying sheet cells (auto-fill, spell check, validation).

OOo comes with a database component which provides true input forms like the ones you may know from professional software, web shops, this forum software,....
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clemens · General User Joined: 23 Oct 2008 Posts: 21

thank you for your reply, although I didn't understant it much.
Basically you are sayaing that it is not possible to use masks on OO since they can mess things up?
also"OOo comes with a database component which provides true input forms like the ones you may know from professional software, web shops, this forum software,...." ????

The pictures I used are just a reference to how I would like to see the data, i.e.not the information of many rows visible at the same time, partially concealed because the cell wdith is too small, but, through a mask or something, the information of one row one at a time clearly displayed, something like this:
column1 header (not editable, tellingwhat type of value it is): specific value
column2 header: specific value
column3 header: specific value
column4 header: specific value
and so on.

My data is all words and I need to check it manually, one by one, not with spellchecks, for consistency with other printed texts the data is drawn from. and as things are now it is really difficult to click on each cell every time because once I click on one and I see more text, the one of the following cell is concealed.

Cheers

jrkrideau · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 10:20 am Post subject:

Villeroy · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:09 am Post subject:

The potentially disastrous input form on extesions.openoffice.org is this one: http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/en/project/DataForm
DO NOT USE THIS TRASH!

clemens · General User Joined: 23 Oct 2008 Posts: 21

Thank you for the very complete reply, I managed to use dbase and things now are exactly as I was hoping for, making it very easy to navigate through the data.
All the best,

Clemens

clemens · General User Joined: 23 Oct 2008 Posts: 21

I have one more quesiton, if possible.
I am now working on the dbase file with the nice mask. and I realised that it would actually be useful to have some more data fields. Is there a way to add them in the tables? (then I can just make a new form to use)
I tried with the edit option of the table (table design), but the new rows I add, no matter where I add them, end up at the bottom of the list, which I know would probably work fine, but goes against the logic of the entire table, given that they become the last columns.
Is there a way to put them in other positions?
Cheers

RPG · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 1:18 pm Post subject:

Hello

When you use a gridcontrol in your form then you can drag the columns in the order you want have.

Romke

Villeroy · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 4:06 pm Post subject:

Open the table for editing (tables section, context menu>Edit or menu:Edit>Edit...)
There you can add as many columns as you like.
Notice that text fields have some limit for performance reasons, memo fields (long comments) are virtually unlimited and numeric types can have a maximum lenght and a fixed number of decimals behind the point.
Then open the form for editing, get toolbar "Form Design", hit button #6 and drag the new fields onto the form which creates a pair of label and text box. Again, a Ctrl+Click lets you select either the label or the text box and set its properties. Notice that the context menu can also convert a plain text box into a date field, a currency field, a combo box (auto-text), ...

Another important design tool is the form navigator (button #5 on "Form Design"). It lets you select a form and its controls more easily.
Button #7 provides a tool to change the tab order of your form. The order is completely independent from the table's order of columns.
Button #2 turns off form design mode, so you can test the form before you save, close and use it.
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