Would love to try out a beta version if available. my email is raonikhilesh "@" gmail
Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
141–150 of 201 posts
Re: Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
#142Pivot-tables would be nice as a core function to model data (see quantrix.com)
Make 'light databases' part of the architecture and not counter-design. something like, spreadsheets meets csv with a cli query component or similar.
Re: Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
#1432. 'Hard' and 'Soft' numbers (i.e., numbers I manually enter vs. numbers that are the result of a formulae) should be automatically coloured accordingly if I want them to be. Manually plugging in a number on top of a formula should not necessarily over-write the formula. It's quite common I want to preserve the logic but 'hack in' a variable. Instead, it's either or (and I have to copy/paste the formula into a comment for the cell, which is a pain and clumsy as hell).
3. Track changes.
4. Non-euclidean topology ... by which I mean, making it possible to vary the number of colums / rows and column / row sizes within a single sheet.
Re: Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
#144Re: Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can do a lot of stuff that overlaps with queries with just array formulas, and a lot of the rest with pivot tables. For example, getting the sum bill of every person who lives in England looks like this in one workbook I have: {SUM(IF($C1:$C$10000 = "England",$E$1:$E10000,0))} (If I want to see, say, the top 10 outstanding bills in England I have to use a pivot table). Excels biggest problem is that the workbooks…
> SUM(IF($C1:$C$10000 = "England",$E$1:$E10000,0)) Slightly offtopic, but I just wanted to point out that excel syntax looks a lot like lisp, with biggest different being the first item is outside the parens.
Re: Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
#146Here are some features that would be nice in Excel: 1. Programmability in something other than VBA (Python?). 2. Online spreadsheets like Google. 3. Better search and replace. 4. Ability to reference tables through URLs so they could show up in blogs and in HTML. Something like this: http://ycspreadsheets.com/joe/doc1.ss?s=1&block=a1:c10. This should produce HTML that some javascript can replace in my blog with the t…
Resolver One is a spreadsheet that has that: http://www.resolversystems.com/products/programmability.php
OpenOffice Calc has some kind of Python programmability too, though I don't know how good it is.
Re: Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
#147Here are some features that would be nice in Excel: 1. Programmability in something other than VBA (Python?). 2. Online spreadsheets like Google. 3. Better search and replace. 4. Ability to reference tables through URLs so they could show up in blogs and in HTML. Something like this: http://ycspreadsheets.com/joe/doc1.ss?s=1&block=a1:c10. This should produce HTML that some javascript can replace in my blog with the t…
My two cents: add support for arbitrary precision math. Sometimes you need it, and when you do, you really need it.
Re: Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
#1481. Really, really great looking graphs. Excel fails so hard at this it's unbelievable. 2. Easy navigation. The giant spreadsheet model is a very simple metaphor but sometimes I'd like a way to jump to different parts of it more easily. 3. Not be a spreadsheet. The one-big-sheet model might be better represented as a bunch of smaller tables floating in space with formulas interconnecting them. The letter/number conven…
The newer excels have much much much better graphic capabilities
Re: Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
#149Emacs key bindings please.
Re: Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?
#150This could be adapted for the spreadsheet concept. Actually, it might be more appropriate there.