Function window in numbers covers the cells need to write function

RSNelson wrote:

I don't want to have to position the mouse to show a hand that moves the window. Can I have the function window fixed at the top of the spreadsheet?

No. Use the hand to drag the formula editor out of the way.

I find that dragging the formula editor away from the table works for me.

Regards,

Ian.

I kind of agree with this... the placement of the formula entry is not always ideal.

Most of the time it's OK, but sometimes it does obscure the cells I want to reference. The question, though, is where should it go?

I'd think it would be easy enough to make sure the formula entry doesn't block any referenced cells that are already in the formula, but that doesn't account for intended changes (how does Numbers know not to block cells I'm going to add to the formula?).

I also don't want it to be fixed at the top or bottom of the screen since that leads to a lot of mouse movement for large sheets/monitors.

For the record, Excel does something similar - shows the formula over the cell, but it's even worse there since it can obscure adjacent cells and there's no way of moving it out of the way.

For now, since I primarily use a MacBook Pro and a Magic Mouse, I find the easiest workaround is a quick two-finger scroll up or down after clicking a cell. This has the effect of shifting the underlying table up (or down), but leaves the formula bar floating where it was. Different solution to moving the formula bar out of the way, but you don't need to be precise with the cursor position.

RSNelson wrote:

Can I have the function window fixed at the top of the spreadsheet?

No. This is how it is. It can be a problem but this is how Apple designed it.

For comparison, here's how Excel handles it:

Note that the highlighted formula in E3 completely obliterates the adjacent cell F3 (it contains 4 like the rest of column F), and it also blanks out G3 (which contains 5) - presumably because the formula overlaps that cell and therefore the entire cell must be obscured to avoid confusion?

Additionally, the 'helpful' formula example also blocks cells E4:G4 (although this can be moved if you can click on the 1 pixel border around the help text).

In this setup, the formula entry is immovable, and it's impossible to integrate any of F3:G3 or E4:G4 in the formula without directly typing the references.

All of a sudden, Numbers doesn't seem so bad, although, granted, you can turn off in-cell entry in Excel, but they added it there for a reason.