MtCellEdit – Lightweight Spreadsheet Program
marktyler.org
marktyler.org
For me, the frustration is version control. Native spreadsheet formats (xlsx/ods) are binary, so un-diffable. Plaintext formats like CSV/TSV play nice with Git, but come at a high cost in ergonomics: there is no way to preserve formatting such as column widths and formulas are usually discarded on save. Moreover, Excel/Calc don't really like it when you overwrite an open file from another program.
MtCellEdit seems to be a step in the right direction, but still leaves a good part of the itch unscratched.
I write an SQL (or mainly PRQL these days) query on a text editor on a file which is being watched by entr which runs the query on a sqlite database which outputs a csv file which is then read by visidata and there I look at the data, do some basic manipulations. That my very simple, completely unix-style data exploration pipeline. What I miss a bit from Visidata is a bit more mouse control. I mainly want to select a range of cells to copy and paste somewhere else, which this does. But unfortunately this doesn't reload the file on change automatically.
Anyone has any recommendations for a data tool that would fit the workflow I described?
18 years of creativity, awesome.
Check mawk and awka.
awk is a quite amazing DSL for what it does
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C0_and_C1_control_codes#Field_...
https://github.com/pmarreck/elixir-snippets/blob/master/prin...
Maybe we should bring field and record separators back and call it "ascii-separated values" (ASV) lol (because, you know... "as originally envisioned by the makers of ASCII")
The only caveat is the lack of visible printability of those (hence that project up there). It would be neat if (by default) the field separator ASCII character looked similar to a tab (maybe with some distinguishing detail such as a dotted underline) and the record separator ASCII character looked similar to a newline (again, with some extra visible difference, but also including the visible linefeed)
There's probably a font feature that lets you do this
The final issue with it is how in the world would we type those characters?
what do you use for parsing?
I agree that this is not going to satisfy something like 80-90% of people who just wanted Excel because a TUI is a nonstarter. I do think calling it "not even close" is unfair if we were strictly talking about functionality.
Supposedly part of excels good design is it was always agnostic as to whether you're using it as a spreadsheet, poor man's database, or pretty table maker.
It doesn’t mention ‘formula’, and that is something that the original had in 1979 (http://www.bricklin.com/history/vcexecutable.htm)
Use = with a Python expression. Not cell-based formula but column-based Python.
Pages is really very slow in comparison to open files. Also Pages can also export to docx, not save. Another hurdle in working with docx files.
For example, Pages can also serve as a basic desktop publishing software as it supports page layouts with text box flow, and Numbers has the best spreadsheet UI that I’ve used (why any other spreadsheet software doesn’t allow to handle “floating” spreadsheets as Numbers? Once you use it is so evident and natural).
No, open yes (taking some time to do conversions) but not save, only export.
I can immediately tell whether a document was produced using Word, or LibreOffice, because of poor ligatures and spacing.
I think Numbers falls short of Excel, which is probably one of the best products Microsoft ever created.
If you don't mind dealing with slightly antique UIs, both LyX and TeXmacs are WYSIWYG and can produce outstanding documents with little effort.
I mean if the linked page didn't include the information, sure asking is fine.