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Is the Best Free-Form Cell-Based Visual Board & Grid .... Excel ?!
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Posted by Andy Brice
Aug 12, 2020 at 04:48 PM
>Can do beta for more feedback for more cards.
>+ Doesn’t have to work w/ all cards.
>Before buying, users can have trial version to see if it works with their spec.
>+ Can also have two v3 releases:
Yes, I will probably let people with v2 licenses use v3 free of charge for a month or so, so I can get feedback.
—
Andy Brice
http://www.hyperplan.com
Ps/ Got some data that needs cleaning, merging or manipulating? Try our new product:
https://www.easydatatransform.com/
Posted by Andy Brice
Aug 12, 2020 at 04:50 PM
washere wrote:
>I don’t think I’m giving up Excel for this purpose though, it’s just
>getting started and there’s no end to what’s possible.
Just don’t put in anything that looks like a date!
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-rename-microsoft-excel-misreading-dates
—
Andy Brice
http://www.hyperplan.com
Posted by Bobby Parker
Aug 12, 2020 at 06:03 PM
Well, you asked about Excel, specifically. When I was doing that DoD work, they actually were using a column-relationship plugin to build these graph visualizations they were doing, to get everything to line up right, to do all kinds of tree & graph displays.
Lots of these things exist…the bottom-line point is that Excel, by itself, is primitive enough, yet richly-formattable enough, to get away with things that LOOK great, but the issue with Excel and many of these plugins is the up-front, very heavy requirement of properly tracking references. IN such plugin systems, that usually relates to extra sheets with special cells and other such jazz for storage purposes.
There is nothing that currently specifically exists to close that gap, as a stand-alone tool. Yes, you can get by with many others, using plugins and extra enhancements. Even a board system as absurdly primitive as Trello, has a custom “Butler” thing that lets you plug in other apps to fill the gaps missing in Trello that you need.
It’s an unfortunately kinda BIG gap to fill, as I’m discovering.
Posted by Lothar Scholz
Aug 12, 2020 at 07:52 PM
Can i ask about some real numbers of how many cells we are talking here.
It’s easy to design stuff for 1000 items even if some programs like Mindmanager for $500 already unable to handle this well.
But with 10k or 100k items its all different from the way the data needs handling to the GUI you need to structure that comfortably enough.
Posted by washere
Aug 13, 2020 at 03:46 PM
Some separate points, in brief:
1,000 isn’t that much, 32 columns x32 rows gives just over that.
However most apps can’t even do that.
Third, Excel is the best for that anyway, why? Because the cells can be resized to smallest, to fit more. Or any other defined size.
Excel also has tabbed worksheets, many apps don’t. So 4 tabs can be thought of as 4 Caro walls. Good for system performance & memory Management too.
The problem of navigating large boards applies to any app, not just Excel. In fact most apps won’t be able to handle large numbers, unless they’re also heavy spreadsheets like Calc, Numbers etc. Or at least not as good as these.
How a cell resizes, has many potentials. Can be expanded or show popup hover detail. Or other ways too. Again few or none of these possible with most apps. Takes a bit of know-how or research though.
I’ve been mentioning sub-grids a few times. This is where one can customize parts of a large sheet. Then anything is possible. Huge area. I’ve been collecting tips etc on customizing this big aspect of Excel.
Another area I’ve mentioned was browsing sub-grids. Again many ways. This is what is possible after moving to a sub-grid in a large sheet. Then ways of browsing & inspecting rows and columns, in various ways from scrolling to more.
Views on an area (browsed to) can change. Like a mini-map in an advanced text editor/ide. Again can use shortcuts scripts, macros etc.
Basically, one can have an overall large view within a sheet like a map (eg Google map). Then zooming in and out on grids, like they’re separate cities. Think of separate chunks of notes on a wall. Different clusters. Then browsing & editing data, like a whole section in a website-map (chart of a big website).
The thing is, unlike any other limited app, almost anything can be hammered out and is possible. Nothing comes close.