spreadsheet (was: BookMorph prompt)

Darius Clarke socinian at gmail.com
Thu Apr 6 07:29:59 UTC 2006


On 4/5/06, Jecel Assumpcao Jr <jecel at merlintec.com> wrote:

> While Excel has been fabulously successful, that is not the way I would
> go for a Tweak/Squeak/Sophie spreadsheet.

+1

> Instead my first priority
> would be to have the best table layout possible since more people seem
> to use Excel for that than for actual calculations (not counting simple
> sorting of tables). And having several smaller tables floating around in
> a larger document seems nicer to me than a single huge 2D (almost 3D
> with tabbed "pages") array,...

+1

> For the second step it would be interesting to look at The Analyst for
> inspiration and allow arbitrary Smalltalk objects and expressions
> instead of just numbers and strings.

+1

>
> Third: I would separate the expressions from the actual cells in the
> style of Lotus Improv. This would encourage the users to think in terms
> of collections of data like in APL or FScript instead of individual
> numbers. It would also make doing things across more than one table less
> awkward.

+1

>The user interface could still present things in terms of per
> cell equations when that is more convenient.

-1
Can't imagine when such would be more convenient, if one allows for a
view where the formula-cell is temporally, visually juxtaposed or
interleaved with the value-cells.

I'd also allow for nesting table layouts so it can represent web pages
and other formats.

I'd also allow for any cell to function as a stack, like a
cell-by-cell undo rather than a whole sheet undo. The stack might also
have a date/time attribute for popping the stacked cell or a range of
stacked cells back to a certain time or a certain value. Allow the
data in a cell to have an expiry date, review for deletion date (by
self and/or others), and/or archive off to persistent storage and then
delete date.

Rather than separate sheets with tabs like a document with separate
pages, one might consider it just one very, very long spreadsheet
(that can be folded for various views). This matches the linear
thinking (and narrative thinking) that most humans stick with. If you
search for something, it's always either above where you're at or
below. Skip document searches vs. sheet searches vs. page searches vs.
row searches vs. column searches, vs. formula searches, vs. ... etc.
Any range and any scope can be give a label for assist in simple
search syntax.

Allow a range of rows & columns to be collapsed like an outline in
certain views.
Allow the toggling of the appearance of a selection of conjoined cells
between a horizontal view, vertical view, and nested view.

Rather than "e-mail" the sheet or document ... mark a cell or range of
cells to be directly shared real time, copy duplicated, or subscribed
and the destination user, computer, and/or universally addressed
"Squeaksheet" peer. This way it doubles as a communication method in
context with the associated data, preserving format, programming code,
and imbedded multi-media across domains, yet more finely grained than
e-mail. Other attributes could include permission allowing other
users' changes to be replicate back, or if shared with a range of peer
and how communities can interact with that cell or range of cells, and
to preserve a copy of the cell's content if the original linked source
disappears.

Allow cells to be categorized and another way to identify them.

Try to reduce the number of top-level columns to stay within the 7+/-2
suggested short-term memory range.

Allow cells to be directly used for the visual grids in line graphs
and bar graphs.

Parse Smalltalk code (formulas) into nested grid tiles as eToys does
(and class definitions too).

Allow nested cell ranges to be used as inspectors of class instances.

[and so on... :) ]

Cheers,
Darius



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