Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 15667
External links aren't automatically removed
Last modified: 2013-08-07 15:12:27 UTC
Make a simple ss with a reference to an external document - remove that reference and save, open again, you are prompted to reload external reference - link should automatically go away when all references do. Also, "break link" is confusing. Maybe "delete"? Thanks!
A simple deleting of the cell does not break the link, because when you create a link to another document, a hidden sheet is inserted into your document. For getting rid of these hidden sheet you have to break the link (EDIT-LINKS-BREAK LINK).
Closed because not an issue
Hmm. That seems like implementation driving functionality. The behaviour is quite unexpected and non-intuitive. If creating the first link creates a "hidden" sheet, removing the last one should delete it.
This could be considered as an enhancement
*** Issue 22268 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Summary: External links aren't automatically removed. Proposed is if creating the first link creates a "hidden" sheet, removing the last one should delete it.
*** Issue 35487 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I would put it in a higher priority. This defect is much worse now that a lot of people (hopefully) will migrate from Excel to OpenOffice. I've migratd all my files, and in Calc files that were Excel files with external links, after manually changing them to the .ods files (see my issue #55655), I've found that I still have the links to the old .XLS files, and also the "hidden sheets" to them! In any case a) this mechanism that is automatic only in one direction (creation) is very confusing (=bad) for the user. I did never thought about such "external links" list and "hidden sheets" until some expert pointed me to them in IRC channel. b) I think that the hidden sheet is a bad desigh choice. I've 40 calc files that take a single value from a big calc file, and I've that big file duplicated (copied as hidden sheet) 40 times. I think that the referred sheet does not have to be saved, and should be reloaded (and not saved in any case) when (if) needed. In addition consider that you could give to someone else a file that, and you as "average user" are not aware of, has a lot of "hidden" information (i.e. you copy a file and modify it to point to other files... your previous pointed data are still there, in hidden sheets...). And the fact that Excel does it is one more reason to do it different ;)
*** Issue 55486 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 82226 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Due to Issue 82226
*** Issue 83009 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
To grep the issues easier via "requirements" I put the issues currently lying on my owner to the owner "requirements".