The Edit menu is mostly used for
operations on a worksheet or between worksheets. This menu
gives users powerful editing operations such as the ability to
undo recent changes, the ability to cut and paste selections
of cells and the ability to search for specific cell contents.
The menu choices are grouped into the following groups:
Change History.
These menu items allow the user to remove recent changes to a
worksheet or re-introduce changes which have been undone. These options give
the user control over recent edits. This functionality is often
called the "change history" of an application.
The type of edit has no importance. An edit which deletes the
contents
of a cell is treated in the same way as an edit which adds contents to
a cell. The change history is session
specific. The user will not be able to undo changes through the
change history if the
file is saved and then re-opened. Note also that the list only covers
the last few dozen operations. The number of operations which
Gnumeric tracks in its history depends on the size and
complexity of those operations. Finally, there are some operations
which cannot yet be modified in this way in Gnumeric 1.0. Sheet
operations (adding or removal) cannot be undone, nor can deleted
comments be restored, nor can altered summary information, nor can
operations on embedded objects be undone.
Undo --- The
Undo menu item is used to
remove
the last few edits from a workbook. The edits must be
undone in order. This menu item removes only the last edit
from the workbook. The user can also access the undo
list through one of the toolbar buttons and its
associated menu.
With this menu, the user can undo several
operations at once. This is explained in section Section 4.2.
Redo --- The
Redo menu item is used after
an undo operation to restore the change that was undone.
The menu item only restores the last undone operation. Users
can also resotre edit using a button on the standard toolbar
and through the associated menu. The menu allows several
operations to be redone at once. It is explained in Section 4.2.
Operations on selected areas.
These menu items enable selected cell contents to be moved
around a spreadsheet, moved between worksheets or between
workbooks. Selections are areas of the spreadsheet that have been chosen,
usually with the mouse, and are usually colored pale blue. Selections
are explained in greater detail in Section 6.5.
Gnumeric currently only allows single range selections for these
operations.
To use these menuitems, the user must first select the range of
the cut or copy area. When the user then picks these menuitems, the contents
of the selected areas will be entered into the Gnumeric clipboard and
into the X clipboard. The contents of the Gnumeric clipboard can then be
inserted into a new region of the spreadsheet, into another worksheet or
into a new workbook. The X clipboard holds the
space delimited results of each cell: either the text or the result of
any calculation. The X clipboard can be pasted into any text area.
Cut --- The Cut
menu item is used to remove a selection from the selected area
of a currently open workbook. When the menu item is chosen, the
selected area will be outlined with a moving dotted line. This
is the area which will be moved. The selection will only be
removed after it is moved to the new location. Until then cut
has not had an effect on the worksheet.
Copy --- The
Copy menu item allows a user to
duplicate a selection. The original data remains where it was
and the Gnumeric clipboard (and the X clipboard) has a copy
which can be inserted elsewhere.
Paste --- The
Paste menu item is used to paste
the contents of a selection which has been cut or copied. If
the selection was cut, it is pasted into the new location
unchanged. Cell references will not change in that they will
still point to the same cells.
Paste Special... --- The
Paste Special... is used to paste
a selection while altering certain characteristics. The
Paste Special... menu item opens a
dialog with three categories. The defaults make
Paste Special... act as if it were the
Paste menu item.
The first set of
choices allow the user to control the data pasted.The user can chose
to limit the pasting to only the cell contents (no cell
formatting is copied) or the opposite only cell formats copied
(no contents). Furthermore, the user can insert the selection
while transforming all the contents into values only. Formulas
will not be copied, only the results will be.
A second set of choices allows the user to perform simple
mathematical transformations during the paste. The data in the
cells being pasted into are modified by the cell contents. For
instance, using the divide operation will result in each cell
in the zone pasted into being divided by the equivalent cell
which was cut or copied originally.
The final choices allow the transposition of the original
selection or to not paste empty cells. The
transpose check box
will change the selection so that the cells that are down n
rows from the selection's origin are pasted as being over n
columns (and vice-versa). The skip blanks
prevents Gnumeric from taking any action for the cells in the
selection that are blank. Note that the selection will be
transformed if that option is selected but then that the
paste will not change the cells in the transformed location if
this skip blanks option is selected.
Data removal operations.
All of these operations remove data from the worksheet. They
differ in the type of data removed and the re-arangement of
remaining data. The differences are explained below.
Clear --- The
clear menu item merely opens a
sub-menu with four choices. The user can choose to clear all
the elements of the cells in a selection: the formats, the
comments, the contents. Alternatively, the user can choose
to clear a single one of those elemets. Clearing the formats
will leave the data or formula in the cell intact. It will
remove any borders, re-set the cell alignments, change the
background colour to white and the text colour to black and
reset the number format to General. Clearing the comments
will simply delete the comments for the cells in that
location. Finally clearing the contents will leave the
cell's formatting in place but remove the formula or data
contents of the cell.
Delete --- The
delete menu item may open a dialog
giving the user a choice of options. Any of the options
will completely delete the selected cells. Depending on the
selection, Gnumeric will fill in the space the cells
were occupying differently. With column or row selections,
the effect is easy to understand and no choice is possible
so Gnumeric does not open the dialog. The space left by
selected rows, is filled by moving lower rows up
whereas the space filled by deleting columns is filled by
moving to the left columns which were right of the selection.
For example, if columns D and E are selected for deletion,
Gnumeric will move the contents of all columns from F
onwards two columns to the left.
With blocks of cells, the delete
menu item will open a dialog asking the user how to fill in the
deleted cells. Blocks of cells will either be filled in by the
columns of cells below the block selection or by the rows on
the right of the block. For example, if the user chose the
block of cells from E6:G8 for deletion, those cells could be
filled in by the cells below E8, F8 and G8 if the Shift cells
up option were chosen. Alternatively, the cells to the right
of G6, G7 and G8 could fill in the space from the right if the
Shift cells left option were chosen.
Other operations on worksheets.
These menu entries do not group together logically. Each
entry is explained in detail below.
Sheet --- The
Sheet menu item opens up a
submenu which allows users to perform operations on the
worksheet. Note that this is the same set of choices as are
available from the context menu which appears by clicking
(usually with the right mouse button) on one of the
worksheet tabs. The worksheet can be duplicated to create a
second sheet with the same contents. A new worksheet can be
inserted immediately following the current sheet. The
current sheet can be renamed in a the little pop-up window. The
sheets can be re-ordered or the current sheet can be
deleted. For this last option Gnumeric asks for confirmation
since this choice cannot be undone.
Select --- The
Select menu item allows the user
to select various portions of the worksheet. The
Select All provides a quick way to
select the entire worksheet. The Select
Row and Select Column
menuitems allow the user to select all the rows or columns
spanned by the current selection.
The Select Array menu item allows a
user to select all the cells which are part of the same array
as the current cell. The Select Depends
menu item selects all the cells which are formulas which at
least partially need the data in the current cell.
Fill --- The
Fill menu item opens a submenu
with only one choice currently. The
Autoill menu item will fill an
entire selection with any formula which is in the top left
cell of the selection.
Search... --- The
Search... menu item opens a dialog
to search for cells with particular content. The dialog has
three tabs. In the first the user can enter the information
the user wants to find and some constraints on the search. The
second tab gives some extra choices for the search. When the
user has picked the options they perfer, pushing the search
button on the first tab will run the search. The third tab
will show which cells match the search.
Search and Replace... --- The
Search and Replace... menu item
will launch a dialog to find cells with particular
characteristics and replace them all with a common content.
This dialog is similar to the Search
dialog.
Goto cell... --- The
Goto cell... menuitemn opens up a
dialog which allows the user to type the name of a cell in
the worksheet. The current view will then change to be sure
that the selected cell is in the current view and the
selection will cover that cell.
Recalculate --- The
Recalculate menu item forces
the workbook to recalculate its results. This is useful
if a formula in the current worksheet depends on a cell in
a different workbook. Gnumeric will not necessarily know
when that data has been updated so a user can force
Gnumeric to recalculate all the cells in the current
workbook.