What is a practical use for the function CELL()

[TheRealWhiteKnight]

Hi Mike,
If you were responding to my feelings of insecurity about requesting a change to a perennial gripe with the reassurance that it may already have been addressed, then I thank you - it has been noted.

If you’re suggesting I should add my comment - “This user agrees that the singular CELL(“row”) in Excel returning the active ROW# is a perfect functional response to a valid user requirement and that OASIS/LO telling us You’re in the cell you’re in DUMMY is less use than the proverbial Chocloate Fireguard”. Thereby suggesting the OASIS spec is the Dummy in the Room, would be considered a valued contribution - I’m not convinced.

[mikekaganski]

I was simply providing information about existing issue on the topic. What to do with this is up to you. Generally, there’s no need to add comments like “me too” - they do no good, only create noise. If you want to “increase importance” of the issue, you are welcome to add yourself to CC list. We use the number of CCed people as a useful “affected” metric. But if you have something that will increase usefulness of the issue - adding it is very useful.

[TheRealWhiteKnight]

I’m unsure whether my own use case is too esoteric but it certainly demonstrates how an OASIS standard that corrupts an established Excel.4 function with perhaps 20 years of “seniority” is not an improvement. It just drags all software down to the level of the lowest performer.

[TheRealWhiteKnight]

Sorry, forgot to ask. Is it frowned upon to offer an Excel sheet and a LO sheet to demonstrate the impact?

[mikekaganski]

It is not frowned upon. But I doubt that they would really demonstrate anything - you should not assume, that others have access to Excel; and without Excel, the file will show nothing (it will work in Calc the same way as ODS).

So possibly, the Excel file needs an accompanying screencast, demonstrating visually, how it is intended to work; and ODS is of no use here at all.