Typing in a cell box loses focus when selecting a cell for a formula or switching windows

Desktop editors
,
1

Do you want to: Report a bug (Suggest a feature)
OS version: Windows 11
App version: v9.2.1
Downloaded from: ONLYOFFICE website

There is a behavior of the Spreadsheet program whereby the cell you have been typing in “loses focus”. I don’t know if this is a bug, but it is a feature that I think would be optimal to not happen.

For example, say you are editing any cell, and you are typing a formula, and part of that formula involves another cell, e.g. “=1+F5+73”.

The expected behavior:

  1. user selects cell, e.g. A1 with mouse
  2. user types F2 and starts to edit cell
  3. user types: =1+
  4. user uses mouse to select F5, so now it is: “=1+F5”
  5. The “focus”/cursor should still be inside A1.
  6. user types: +73
  7. user types enter and completes the formula.

What happens instead in OnlyOffice:

  • after step 4 above (selecting a cell to input into the formula with the mouse), OnlyOffice “loses” the focus away from the editing cell
  • now, if you continue typing to complete the formula, nothing happens, because the “cursor”/“focus” is “gone” (don’t know how else to describe this). This is despite the fact that you were just editing cell A1 in the middle of a formula.
  • in order to continue editing the formula, you need to use the mouse to select again the cell you were editing (my example above A1), and then you complete the formula.

I don’t know if the above behavior was intentional or not, but I find that it really impedes entering formulas efficiently.

A related problem (maybe linked to the same code), is that if the user temporarily switches out of OnlyOffice in the middle of editing a cell to another program, and then comes back, the “cursor”/“focus” is also taken away from the cell you were editing. Again, this impedes entering formulas efficiently.

e.g. say a user is editing a cell, and wants to cut and past a value from the web browser into the formula, it is not possible in a seamless way.
So the expected behavior would be as follows:

  1. user edits a cell, e.g. A1, and starts typing: =56+
  2. user switches to the other program (e.g. does ALT+TAB) into e.g. a browser, finds the value they want, selects and it and copies it, e.g. say this value is 7.866.
  3. user switches back to OnlyOffice with ALT+TAB.
  4. user presses CTRL+V to complete the formula: =56+7.866

Instead what happens is, upon step 3 switching back to OnlyOffice, the “cursor”/“focus” is gone from A1. So pressing CTRL+V doesn’t paste anything into anywhere, nor is typing doing anything, despite that you were just editing cell A1 in the middle of a formula. You need to explicitly select cell A1 again with the mouse, then you can continue on with step 4 above.

Again, I don’t know if this behavior was intentional, but I find it impedes efficient entry of formulas using the keyboard.

Please do let me know if this description was not clear. Thank you!

2

Hello @OnlyTraveler

I was unable to reproduce either of these issues with the latest version of Desktop Editors on Windows 11. Please let me know which type of installation is being used (EXE//MSI/Online installer) and whether graphics acceleration is enabled in the settings of Desktop Editors.

1 Like
3

Hi @Constantine , thanks for the quick response.

Firstly, I am using the EXE installer, and graphics acceleration is enabled.

Secondly, for some reason I cannot explain, I am now also no longer able to reproduce the errors I first described. I don’t understand, because this behavior had been happening for some time from prior versions, as I had noticed it. I had recently updated to v9.2.1, and I wonder if perhaps something was solved in that latest version but my computer needed a reboot to fully realize the changes in OnlyOffice?

That said, the error I mentioned IS still present for the case of switching between sheets in the same spreadsheet, e.g.:

  • create a new spreadsheet, and create a new sheet, e.g. Sheet2
  • in Sheet1, type into some cell: =1+
  • switch to the other sheet, i.e. Sheet2
  • click A1 with the mouse, and the formula will be adjusted to “=1+Sheet2!A1”
  • now the “focus” will be lost, and in order to continue typing you need to click up at the formula entry line “fx” to continue the entry
  • N.B. you can press ENTER – this will finalize the cell entry and work. But that is the only key that seems to be recognized

With regard to the above, I have tried this with and without graphics acceleration, and the error was the same (on a rebooted machine with v9.2.1).

4

Thanks for the reply. Many issues are getting fixed in between the updates.

As for the issue with focus: I was able to reproduce it when typing a formula into a cell directly. It works as expected if a formula is entered from formula bar. I have forwarded this scenario to QA team to confirm. I’ll keep you posted.

6

QA team has confirmed the behavior as a bug 48555. I will keep you posted on the resolution.