Using "enter" to paste

[Duster929]

As I work with spreadsheets a lot, I am always looking for a way that I can reduce even one keystroke for an operation.

One operation that I do often is to paste a series of cells in a row into the row beneath it. In Excel, I used to highight the selection to paste, (i.e. shift+end+direction), then copy (i.e. ctrl+insert), then down-arrow to move to the next row (which would move the cursor to the cell in the next row below the first selected cell), then "enter" to paste.

In OOcalc, there are a few more keystrokes required. Making the selection is easy enough (shift+end), but when I arrow-down, I have to then left-arrow back to the cell underneath the first cell selected, as the default cell selected on down-arrow is underneat the last cell of the selection. Then I have to use another shortcut like "ctrl+v" to paste.

I think the number of keystrokes can be reduced, but I don't know exactly how to do this. I may have to write a macro, but I'd rather not. If someone can tell me how to configure OOcalc so that it does the following things, I would appreciate it:

1. When down-arrow is used after selecting a series of cell, position the cursor automatically in the cell underneath the FIRST cell in the selection, so I don't have to arrow-left to the beginning.

2. Have one key (i.e. enter) configured to execute the paste command when a series of cells has been copied into the clipboard/memory. That way I don't have to do ctrl+v to paste each time.

If anyone has a suggestion for other ways to reduce keystrokes, let me know. I'm willing to learn new tricks.

--- D

[9point9]

There's no way of setting this Excel (well, really it's1-2-3) behaviour in Calc. One way to reduce keystrokes: buy a keyboard with a paste button
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[Duster929]

Yeah, but one of the points of going to OO was the whole "free" thing. Buying a new keyboard so that I can more effectively utilize free software seems like a step sideways, not forwards.

I have set the "enter" key to be equal to "paste", which works quite well for pasting, but then the enter key retains this setting AFTER the paste, so it no longer works as an "enter" key. If there were a way to temporarily over-ride the "enter" key only while there is something sitting in the clipboard/memory, that would be super-sweet.

And yes, I know it's a 1-2-3 feature. Funny how so much of what's good about Excel came from 1-2-3. And now we're losing that as we move to OO. Perhaps we should be going backwards, not forwards? Maybe we should ensure that OO captures all of the wonderful things about 1-2-3, and forget that Excel ever happened?

--- D

[Villeroy]

[Duster929]

Very nice. I like the "enter-to-change-focus" trick. Elegant, and works well - it actually gives more flexibility than in Excel.

Still dealing with a 2-key combination for the paste, but I'll think on that one and maybe write a macro for when I have repetitive tasks requiring few keystrokes.

A step in the right direction, definitely.

And thanks for the other post - I did, in fact see it, but honestly, I don't know what to do with it... it looks like it should solve the issue I have, but I'm too new at this to properly understand what I should do with that code. Even though you've specified the step-by-step instructions, I still don't understand OO or Calc well enough to really follow them. I'll do a little more digging and learning so that I can get at least partway there, and then I may ask you some more questions about it.

Thanks.

--- D

[Villeroy]

Have a look at Tools>Settings>Shortcuts.
The dialog is not very well designed, but it allows you to define your own keyboard-settings and save them to a file. When upgrading you can load them from your file.
About the macro (applies to a single spreadsheet for testing)
Create a new doc
Tools >Macro>Organize>OOoBAsic
In the browser-dialog you have three kinds of containers
1. "MyMacros" (code saved in your user profile)
2. "OOoMacros" (code saved in the install-dir of OOo)
3. Each doc has it's own code-container
Select the container of the new doc for now
Container has a default-library "Standard". Select it
Button "new" asks for some name of a module to be saved in lib Standard. Accept default "Module1".
Now you get a kind of "code-document-window". Actually it's part of the spreadsheet-doc.
Ctrl+A DEL (remove default content)
Paste the code.
Tools>Settings>Events
Selection at the bottom: your document
Select event "On Doc Open"
Button "Assign"
Browse yourDoc > Standard > Module1 > OOo_DocOpen_DocCreate
Save your doc and reload.
Have fun.
Your are one of the users who asked for this. So your feedback is welcomed.