Hi,

some comments from me :

1.) OOo is an integrated Office, that means you can't have single
Applications and how should the Office decide what should be opened ?
So a text file will be opened in Writer as this is the Application
which handles such documents.

2.) What do you want ? No delimiter sounds not really usefull. If you
need some fixed width delimiter just switch to it. 

For selecting more than one column, just try the latest OOo1.1Beta2.
We have implemented this right now.

3.) This is because Calc can't calculate with text values. So if you
type the value again, you get a number and therefore can calculate
with such values. If you really want the values to be text even if you
enter some numbers, just select the cells in question and set the cell
format to text. This prevents the changing from text to number on
entering new values. 

4.) The highlight color is the complementary color of the application
background. This is chooseable using OOo1.1Beta2.

Thanks for trying OOo and submitting your enhancement request. For the
next time please open a new Issuezilla task for each enhancement
request. This will make it much easier to answer and possibly
implement such requests.

As most if not all RFE's are implemented in OOo1.1 Beta I have to
close this Issue as worksforme as this state fits best.

Best regards

Frank

closed as most of the requests are implemented

Hi

Thanks for looking at this. I hope I can still post to this. As I feel 
I might have been misunderstood.

1) I understand that OOo is an integrated suite, but the point is, 
that the user has decided to use part of the suite to perform a 
specific function, yet OOo is 'over-riding' the user's logic which I 
feel is incorrect. If you install calc only, and try to open the text 
file, nothing happens. Why not try to tell the Open Dialog which app 
has called it, then process the opening file behaviour on that. I 
think maybe you might consider doing this for userfriendliness/ 
satisfaction more than anything as I am pretty sure you will get lots 
of complaints about this.

2) In the import screen for Text CSV, there is a "text delimiter" drop 
down list that only contains [ ' ] and [ " ] (I think Excel better 
names this as a qualifier) but what if I don't have any 
delimiter/qualifier in my text file? Although it may import properly 
if you choose either option, if you click save, it puts in the 
delimiter/qualifier even though the original file didn't have it. My 
point is, add an option that represents no delimiter/qualifier. It 
will save a lot of calls to the IT depts from newbie to whom it may 
not immediately occur that you can click in the drop down list and 
delete the option to represent "no delimiter/qualifier"

3) I understand that calc cannot calculate text, but I think the main 
reason many people import text files into spreadsheet applications 
such as OOo Calc and MS Excel is to take advantage of features such as 
drag and drop, row numbers, fill handle etc. And although in most 
cases it is fine to set the format to number, my point is that I 
"specified" the 'Text' option when importing, but Calc has over-ridden 
than by changing it to Number - General. And although I DO use your 
recommended method of changing the formats, it's kind of 
counter-productive. It almost as if the 'Text' option when importing 
is either useless or very limited.

4) I will certainly upgrade in the next few days.

I am sorry for posting all the requests in one issuezilla task, and 
again answering it all here. It was my first post, and I felt a 
response would be best here as it will be easier to follow. Thank you 
once again for you time, and I look forward to your responses.

Hi Bettina,

1 4 u

Frank

enhanced summary, set keywords and reassigned issue according to RFE process

*** Issue 15243 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

As far as I see, the first point of the original poster has been dropped with
the argument "OOo is an integrated Office". Maybe from a programmers point of
view it is. But from users point of view it is not (always). If I'm working with
Calc, I don't bother about Writer, so if -while in Calc- I want to open a text
file I mean that I want to open it *here*, and not in another application that
happens to be part of the same suite. 

I've seen this going wrong with users new to Openoffice.org quite a number of
times. In fact, this quirk, in combination with the bad user interface for
graphs has kept me using wither Gnumeric, or Excel under Vmware, whereas I
completely ditched Word^{tm} for all my text things.

MSOffice is -supposed to be- an integrated office suite as well. But Excel
*does* understand that if a user opens a text file from within Excel, the user
wants to import that text into Excel. And since Excel, like Calc, has a wizard
for this, it starts the wizard.

I can imagine that the automatism of starting a certain application when a
certain type of file is opened is buried very deep in the logic and code of OO.
And in most cases is works well. But the current issue is an extremely annoying
example where it does not.

I am working with CSV files that contain data like this:

"Hibbs","Philip",36,"0123456789"

If I mark the last column as Text, it puts a ' in front of every field value. If I then type in a new value, the cell is still a "Number/General" cell, so it strips the leading zero and makes it a number, and when I export it, it doesn't get the quotes. This is very annoying.

The import dialog should have a tickbox "Format text cells as Text". This would maintain 100% compatability with current behaviour, while allowing those that know that they are getting into (no calculation with Text cells) to get what they want (I don't want to do maths on telephone numbers).

*** Issue 37856 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

*** Issue 39862 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Hi,

today I've tried to load a .csv to calc. But it was simply impossible using the
open function. OO simply ignores the selected filter and opens as text in
writer. csv is a data format and not a text format. To change the behaviour of
OO is not an enhancement, but fixing of a major bug.

By the way, I've solved my problem by describing a datasource and than copying
the data into calc. Sometimes I want Excel back (just sometimes :-))!

*** Issue 51004 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Similar problem for me is opening .dat files I would like to import them to calc
but they are opened in writer. Can I import it to calc? 

My vote is for in particular #3 here - I feel that if there is text in quotes
(text delimited in the CSV), then the resulting cells in OOo should be formatted
as text. I also feel that if the user marks a column as Text, then the text
format should be applied to the resulting cells. This issue still hasn't been
addressed in OOo 2.0, and I think it should be.

*** Issue 56568 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

The best workaround for this issue is to add an menu entry in "file" named
import or "import cvs files". this way the OOo will always import the cvs file
into calc. Its more locigal as the output in .pdf files is done either by menu
entry export instead of a save as filter

I find it remarkable that Open Office thinks that I don't know what I am doing,
so when I directly instruct Calc to open a tab-delimited file, that is not a
comma separated file (CSV), it launches Writer and puts it there. So apparently
I need to change the file extension to CSV and then, in the text import dialog
change it from comma delimited to tab delimited.

I'm also told in the Open Office Help Forums that this topic comes up hundreds
of times.  So I gather that, given how old this "Issue" is, the developers are
simply not listening to the users.  This issue alone is reason enough for me not
to recommend Open Office.  It's not really unusual to import text files that are
not "CSV" into a spreadsheet.  I think that if you have to explain to a new user
that they must work around the software when it overrides your explicit command,
then the software needs some work.

This problem still exists in OO 2.2 on Linux !

I understand that if I start "ooffice" the suite preselects writer to open a 
csv file without the csv extension. However when I explicitly start "oocalc" I 
don't want no stinking computer to tell me that in fact I must have 
meant "oowriter" and consequently overrule *MY* deliberately made choice.

At least for 'oocalc somefile' I'd expect to get the csv import dialog (or 
whatever calc compatible import might be applicable). FWIW 'kspread' can do it 
just nicely.

I would like to see a filetype selection when issuing 'ooffice somefile' that 
allows me to tell OO I'm loading a CSV file.

Best,
Michael

This needs to be fixed.  Saying that OOo is "one office under the hood" is
meaningless to users, who use one application at a time.  Adding a separate
"Import Text" option on the file menu would be fine.

Part #3 of the issue (keeping data formats) is especially vital.  What, indeed,
is the point of having the data-format option in the Import Text dialog if the
data formats are not actually applied to the resulting spreadsheet.

Why is a target milestone not assigned?

I agree that CSV files must open by default on Calc - it's a high priority
feature because of the accessibility. I don't ever meed a man interested in
opening a CSV file in a text processor like Word of Calc ! 

PS. Please reedit the summary and remove the other request and if you want add
other issues. In the future NEVER add more than one request/issue.!

7 years and this still hasn't been fixed!
Same thing happens in Open Office 3.2

If I open Calc then try to open a file, I want it to open in Calc.
If I wanted to open the file in Writer, I would have opened Writer!

The fact that you can work around it by selecting Text CSV is meaningless as
well because that option is entrenched in an overly huge list of other options
(44th out of 113 options!!!).
Before you get to that you have Text documents, Spreadsheets, Text, Text Encoded
and other potential options so people assume it doesn't work.

OOo advertises with things like "interoperability with Microsoft Office for
free" etc etc
If that is the case, why are there decisions like these to operate completely
differently to Microsoft Office?

If you search the forums there are hundreds of posts asking questions that this
bug addresses and feel as though it is 'broken'.

As often is the case with these types of issues, some people want it one way and
some want it in a seemingly opposing way.

The solution that will appease everyone is to make it an option in the settings.
Then the people that like the original way can carry on without any affect to
them and the people that like it the way as certain other office suites can be
happy by switching on the option.

I would suggest that you either have an option in the settings or you have a
radio button on the open dialog that gave the choice
 - Automatically choose application based on file type
 - Try to open file in this application.