Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 112907
Improved UI when deleting range of cells, if some of them are protected
Last modified: 2013-12-17 13:06:54 UTC
Make sure some cells are protected and that some are not, for example you can unprotect the columns A-B and D-E and let C be protected. Protect the sheet, with or without a password. Now select a range of cells where some cells are protected and some are not, for example A4:E9. Hit Delete or Backspace. Nothing will happen, because some of the cells in the range are protected and the sheets is too. Actually, not even an error message pops up…! It does however, when I try to delete one single protected cell. But what do I want to happen when I follow the instructions above? Well, in most cases I want to delete all the cells in the range that are not protected and let the rest of them remain as they were. This is convenient if I enter numbers in a few ”input columns” and some other columns – protected – contains formulas that calculate things from the input columns. If I want to clear out all the input data and start over, it would be very convenient to just select a big range of cells and hit delete, and all the cells that are unprotected will be deleted. Then I don't have to spend time writing a Clear Sheet macro or to do a complicated (in some cases) multi selection in a sheet. I can accept that a dialogue pops up asking me before deleting, though, or a setting somewhere to determine the wanted behaviour. Hope this make sense to anyone else. I have been thinking of this for several years now so maybe it's time to report it, I thought…
Currently, the message "Protected cells can not be modified." AOO410m1(Build:9750) - Rev. 1551264 2013-12-17_04:10:52 - Rev. 1551455 Debian