Bug in the German version of Numbers?

Question

Hi
Is it possible that the German version of Numbers 08 has a bug or am I doing something wrong:
If I enter a formula via the forumla-button/more formulars (in German: Funktion/ Weitere Funktionen) with more then 1 input value it shows me something like:
=SUMMEWENN(firstvalue;second;third)
But that doesn't work. I seams that I need to replace the semicolons with commas to make it work:
=SUMMEWENN(BERECHNET,"=1",GESBETRAG)
Has any one made the same experience?
Cheers
Petr
Message was edited by: petr b

Answer 1

This bug is likely related to Swiss number formats. In Germany they use comma as the decimal separator, so a semicolon makes there sense for separating formula values, but it breaks the formulas on a Swiss German system.
To fix it the "hard" way but for good (at least until the next update, that is), go to
/Applications/iWork '08/Numbers.app/Contents/Frameworks/SFTabular.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Ge rman.lproj/functions.strings
1. Duplicate this file first, name it e.g. "functions~original.strings" and leave it in the same location as a backup. (You may also want to make a backup zip archive of the whole Numbers.app if you're not very sure about hacking hidden files and you're afraid that you could mess things up...)
2. Open the original file in a plain text editor, TextEdit will suffice.
3. Scroll the document to the line that says: "ABS_FORMAT" = "ABS(Zahl)";
4. From there, select the text to the end of the document (command-shift-downarrow).
5. Open the Search & Replace window (command-F), enter "; " as search string, enter ", " as the replace string. DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THE SPACE BOTH AFTER THE COMMA AND SEMICOLON!
(EDIT: The reason for that is that you DON'T WANT to replace the semicolons at the end of each line!)
6. In the Search/Replace window, hold down the Option (Alt) key, and klick the button that will now say "In der Auswahl" (In the selection).
7. Save the file, overwriting the original.
8. Put a copy of the modified file somewhere to your Home folder (don't forget to note its original path into its Comment field), so you can reuse it for subsequent Numbers 1.0.x updates, since we don't need to hold our breaths that Apple will be too fast at fixing this bug...
Message was edited by: Lukas