tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu (Anthony Rich) (02/05/90)
I finally received my WINGZ 1.1 (educational) upgrade. Under the
"Number" item in the "Format" menu it has a new feature, "Custom...",
which lets you create custom number formats not already in the menu.
Great idea! So I tried it with a new custom date format. I got
lots of surprises. Is this "new feature" broken? Here's what I did.
1. Created a new spreadsheet. Cell A1 is automatically selected.
2. Pulled down Format/Number/Custom and created a new date format
of the form MMM DD YYYY and clicked OK. (You have to use MMM even
though *they* use "Mon" for "month" in the formats already listed
in the Number menu. Grrr! A "user-grouchy" interface slipup.)
3. Entered the date 1-12-1990, intentionally using that date format
instead of the custom one I had just created.
!! WINGZ shows 01-12-90 in cell A1! That's neither the format I
created *nor* the format of the date that I entered!
4. Pulled down Format/Number/Custom again, selected the MMM DD YYYY
custom format that I created before, and clicked OK.
WINGZ now shows Jan 12 1990 in cell A1, using my custom format.
!! But WINGZ now shows 32885 on the data entry line! Am I supposed
to remember that 32885 corresponds to January 12, 1990, for future
reference? Grrr! User is grouchier now.
5. I changed the 32885 on the data entry line to Jan 12 1990,
intentionally using the exact same form as the custom format
already set for cell A1. Nothing should change, right?
!! WINGZ changes cell A1 to show 12-Jan-90 -- which is a date format
altogether different from any of the others used before!
I also selected the custom format again, then copied it to cell A2
using Paste Special/Format, then entered a new date. The custom
format wasn't used to format the new date in cell A2.
Is this brain-damaged or is this brain-damaged? The builtin formats
in the Number menu work perfectly, not like the custom ones at all.
Is everyone's copy of WINGZ like this? Is there something obvious I'm
overlooking? I'm guessing that Informix tried to add custom formats by
using a Hyperscript script. The result seems pretty useless. Is there
any way to make them work properly, like the builtin ones do?
Tony
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Email: tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu Phone: 608-271-8450
Disclaimer: The opinions above are mine. Others may agree or disagree.
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