Bug 160938 - FORMCONTROLS: Add ability to Find and Replace field names
Summary: FORMCONTROLS: Add ability to Find and Replace field names
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.5.2.2 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Form-Controls
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2024-05-05 00:48 UTC by Steve
Modified: 2024-05-15 08:49 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Example document (12.81 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2024-05-15 08:49 UTC, Heiko Tietze
Details

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Description Steve 2024-05-05 00:48:38 UTC
This is a feature request to enhance the Find and Replace dialog to include the ability to find and bulk-replace form control field names.

Why would this be useful?

Many forms are repetitive. They may contain table after table of arrays of dozens of fields. At the moment, copying a table full of form controls is easy (copy/paste) however each field control must then be edited individually to ensure unique field names. This is tedious but necessary.

If a Find and Replace Field Names was available, the form designer could be much more efficient by copy/pasting the table, selecting it, and then doing a Find/Replace (with option Current selection only). For example, if a table had field names 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, 1.1.4, etc. then a Field Name Find/Replace of '1.1.' with '1.2.' would rename all fields at once while retaining the integrity of the naming scheme.

I realise this is a long shot request, but it would make my job easier so I thought I'd put it out there. Thanks for your consideration.
Comment 1 Eyal Rozenberg 2024-05-10 16:44:55 UTC
Support this.

UI-wise, it could be as easy as adding another checkbox in the F&R dialog: 

[ ] Field Names

like we have

[ ] Comments
Comment 2 Heiko Tietze 2024-05-14 08:20:34 UTC
Another F&R (with replace being disabled) sounds good. But isn't the sidebar enough to find a particular field name?
Comment 3 Steve 2024-05-15 05:06:03 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #2)
> Another F&R (with replace being disabled) sounds good. But isn't the sidebar
> enough to find a particular field name?

Replace is a critical part of this request. Use case detailed above.
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2024-05-15 08:49:08 UTC
Created attachment 194124 [details]
Example document

If you copy/paste a table with form controls the resulting names are amended with a number like "top_left" becomes "top_left 1". What's wrong with it?