drop-down lists and feezing panes

[James Norris]

Way back in May-2003, J.E. McGimpsey posted:

From: J.E. McGimpsey
Date: Sun, May 11 2003 9:22 pm

....

By any chance, is your validation dropdown on a line above a freeze
pane row? XL97,98,01 and v.X have a bug that precludes the dropdown
showing on such lines.

....

I'm running version 11.2.5 (060602) of Excel for the Mac on a 1GHz
PowerBook G4 running OS 10.4.7 and having the same problem. Namely: a
drop-down list created using:

Data>Validation>Settings(Allow=List, Ignore blank=Checked, In-cell
dropdown=Checked, Source=[range on worksheet])

above the freeze-pane line will generate the pull-down icon when the
its cell is clicked on, but will not actually drop-down when the icon
is clicked on. It looks like the I'm-working-on-it clock icon is
popping up for a fraction of a second when I click on the pull-down
icon, but it doesn't stay up long enough for me to be sure.

On the other hand, a drop-down list created using the same method
created below the freeze-pane line works as it should.

If the pane is unfrozen, the former drop-down list begins to work as it
should. (The latter drop-down list continues to work as it should.)

Is anyone else having this problem?
Is there any known work-around, aside from unfreezing the pane when I
want to use the former drop-down list?
Does anyone know if Microsoft knows about the bug?
How woudl one report this bug to Microsoft?

Thanks,
James Norris

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Is anyone else having this problem?
Is there any known work-around, aside from unfreezing the pane when I
want to use the former drop-down list?

Hmm...

If asked before this, I would have sworn that this was fixed in an
earlier version of XL04. However, I see the same thing, which is
consistent with previous versions (and I almost never use validation
lists and freeze panes together).

One (relatively poor) workaround is to split the window rather than
freeze panes.

Another option is to use a combobox from the forms toolbar.

Does anyone know if Microsoft knows about the bug?
How woudl one report this bug to Microsoft?

Microsoft has certainly been made aware of the bug, and here is as good
a place as any to report it. You can also send a report via Help/Send
Feedback in any Office04 app.

 

[Patrick McMillan [MSFT]]

Thanks for the report. We are aware of this issue and I've added the fact
that it was reported again in the newsgroup to the issue report. This kind
of feedback helps us make the right choices when deciding which issues to
fix and when to fix them.

Thanks,

Pat

Hmm...

If asked before this, I would have sworn that this was fixed in an
earlier version of XL04. However, I see the same thing, which is
consistent with previous versions (and I almost never use validation
lists and freeze panes together).

One (relatively poor) workaround is to split the window rather than
freeze panes.

Another option is to use a combobox from the forms toolbar.


Microsoft has certainly been made aware of the bug, and here is as good
a place as any to report it. You can also send a report via Help/Send
Feedback in any Office04 app.

--
Pat McMillan
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft Corp.

This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[James Norris]

Well, now this is just plain embarassing!

I spent .25hrs searching the MS website and .75hrs first talking to a
gal in India (I think), who I don't think really understood the idiom
"bug", but eventually pointed me to a bug-report website for something
called MS Expression (a web design app, I think), and then a gal in the
Phillipines who eventually handed me off to a tech-support guy here in
the States who asked me to email a attached spreadsheet that
demonstrated the bug. He replied the next day that he would look into
this, send it up the food chain, and get back me.

And it turns out all I had to do was Help>Send Feedback on Excel...

I guess the wonderful thing about life is that you learn something new
everday.