11 ms·

SC-IM – An ncurses spreadsheet program for the terminal

130 points by laktak 6y ago

tyingq 6y ago
A few other terminal based spreadsheets: Visidata https://www.visidata.org/ https://www.visidata.org/ Oleo https://www.gnu.org/software/oleo/ https://www.gnu.org/software/oleo/ Teapot https://www.syntax-k.de/projekte/teapot/ https://www.syntax-k.de/projekte/teapot/
- snazz 6y ago
  I highly recommend that anyone interested in improvements to spreadsheets check out Teapot—it has a really cool 3D cell indexing system, a type system, and lots of other features that make it fundamentally much more advanced than Excel in many ways.
  - elcritch 6y ago
    A three dimensional spreadsheet sounds interesting, but the teapot site doesn’t appear to have a link to documentation on how to it works.
    - yissp 6y ago
      The download includes fairly decent documentation (although I agree it would be nice to be able to view it on the site).
- Someone 6y ago
  Visidata is a cool for exploring tabular data sets, but not a spreadsheet.
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  The original Lotus 1-2-3 was 'terminal' based too ....
  - tyingq 6y ago
    Sure, and Visicalc before that, probably others.
    - leejoramo 6y ago
      I believe that VisiCalc was the first to ship a functional spreadsheet. I remember watching RichHarris’s “Rich Harris - Rethinking reactivity” video introducing Svelte 3, and he discussed an earlier academic spreadsheet concept. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao I used the following “terminal” spreadsheets VisiCalc on a Radio Shack Model III Microsoft MultiPlan on MS-DOS Lotus 1-2-3 on MS-DOS
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      An interesting product! It was shipped by a company (if I remember right) called "Personal Software" or some such. They marketed software they collected from individual developers. VisiCalc was their one runaway success. So much so, they changed their name to VisiCorp.
  - efreak 6y ago
    Far less likely to support modem formats and features, though.
- k2enemy 6y ago
  I'd also like to point out the spreadsheet functionality of org-mode as a terminal based spreadsheet. I actually started using org-mode for this feature. I had been using sc-im, but found it limiting, especially the because you cannot pass a range of cells to a custom function. In org-mode this is no problem at all, plus there are many more built in functions.
simmons 6y ago
I used sc back in the day for many light tasks. I had no idea that James Gosling was an author. (Or didn't know who James Gosling was, at the time.) It's great to see that it's being maintained in some form!
Jaruzel 6y ago
Coming from a DOS background, this gave me nostalgia for Lotus-123.
DNied 6y ago
Cool. I use original sc almost every day. Is this from the same code base?
dividedbyzero 6y ago
Genuinely curious, what reasons are there to use this instead of a GUI spreadsheet application?
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  I guess in the case where you don’t have access to a desktop environment. I’m also curious to know if there’s a reason to use this if you do have access to a gui...
  - efreak 6y ago
    Speed. Simplicity. All you want to do is update a single value or insert a row into a spreadsheet? You can probably be done using the terminal application before Excel even finishes opening. On my computers, I use Excel so rarely--around once a month or so-- and do full reboots so rarely that it always interrupts me as soon as I open it to finish applying an update to office. And of course, since I'm on Windows, Excel has locked the file (usually just a csv, but one with a dozen or more columns, so hard to do with a text editor) so nothing else can open it in the meantime, and I have to wait several minutes for the modal popup to go away before I can finish appending a timestamp to the end of the file.
- uneekname 6y ago
  I'm not a fan of LibreCalc, and I don't know of many other GUI spreadsheet programs for Linux. A terminal-based program is also attractive because it can easily be scripted. I once had to use sc-im because when I tried to open a ~very~ large file it crashed all the GUI programs I tried.
  - tssva 6y ago
    Gnumeric and Calligra Sheets are 2 other GUI spreadsheets for Linux. Calligra is the name for what used to be the KOffice suite from the KDE project. I can't speak to the usefulness of either especially since I have no idea what your use case is.
- framecowbird 6y ago
jerrysievert 6y ago
I first discovered sc by accident: sc was the "fast" abbreviation for "score" on the MUDs I was working on at the time. made for an interesting shock and great find once I realized what it was. I still use sc sometimes, especially when I want super-easy computations in a very small window without a ton of extra "chrome" getting in my way. it makes layout math very easy and fast. it made me smile seeing it, and seeing the grey link show up here on HN.
ape4 6y ago
SC original authors are James Gosling and Mark Weiser (!)
ForOldHack 6y ago
ncurses gives it arrow key navigation, this is cool. Every single distribution needs this to run WITH disk partitioning software. EVERY. As it is, I have to slipstream DOS box, and run as-easy-as... royal pain. Best reason to run linux ever. ( besides the nifty tee shirts )
lain98 6y ago
Fun fact, the author of sc James Gosling went on to design the java programming language.
ngcc_hk 6y ago
Nurses. Sadly. The other thread using python to do a II has more platform because python And its Screen have more platform.
LeoPanthera 6y ago
This pairs well with WordGrinder, a word processor (not text editor) for the terminal. http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/ http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/
29athrowaway 6y ago
Remember Lotus 123? Quattro Pro? There was a time where terminal spreadsheets was the regular way to work with spreadsheets.
SomeHacker44 6y ago
I used Visicalc in the early 80s (maybe first around 1982). Reminds me of a colorful version of that. Did some awesome things with Visicalc and Wordperfect back in the 80s.
0xdeadb00f 6y ago
No really about the software itself but it's fantastic it uses regular 'ol make (and it looks like it provides a BSD makefile too!). I'm seeing more and more of what I feel are bloated and unnecessary build systems, ninja, cmake, etc.
kohtatsu 6y ago
I absolutely adore sc(1) and enjoy whiling away time by crapping lovingly hand-crafted data in it.
fiatjaf 6y ago
Visidata isn't exactly a spreadsheet, but deserves a mention. https://www.visidata.org/ https://www.visidata.org/
watchdogtimer 6y ago
I've been using sc for many years. As others have noted, it's lightweight and fast. Some of it's unusual features are: 1. Each cell can contain both a label and a value, so you don't need an extra column to label numeric values. 2. Cell editing is done using vi keybindings. 3. Files are stored in a very readable, pure text format. The biggest drawback of sc is there is no undo. If you delete something by mistake, you can't bring it back. This is the biggest reason to choose SC-IM, IMHO. Unfortunately, the menu commands in SC-IM are not the same as the ones in sc, which is a real problem on a keyboard-based spreadsheet and you have developed sc muscle memory :(. SC-IM's help menu is also hard to read in narrow terminal window, because it uses fixed-width line endings that cause every line to improperly wrap. The fact that sc is included by default in most, if not all, Linux distributions makes it so convenient to install and use I likely won't ever change.

130 points by laktak 6y ago

A few other terminal based spreadsheets: Visidata https://www.visidata.org/ https://www.visidata.org/ Oleo https://www.gnu.org/software/oleo/ https://www.gnu.org/software/oleo/ Teapot https://www.syntax-k.de/projekte/teapot/ https://www.syntax-k.de/projekte/teapot/

snazz 6y ago
I highly recommend that anyone interested in improvements to spreadsheets check out Teapot—it has a really cool 3D cell indexing system, a type system, and lots of other features that make it fundamentally much more advanced than Excel in many ways.
- elcritch 6y ago
  A three dimensional spreadsheet sounds interesting, but the teapot site doesn’t appear to have a link to documentation on how to it works.
  - yissp 6y ago
    The download includes fairly decent documentation (although I agree it would be nice to be able to view it on the site).
Someone 6y ago
Visidata is a cool for exploring tabular data sets, but not a spreadsheet.
jasonjayr 6y ago
The original Lotus 1-2-3 was 'terminal' based too ....
- tyingq 6y ago
  Sure, and Visicalc before that, probably others.
  - leejoramo 6y ago
    I believe that VisiCalc was the first to ship a functional spreadsheet. I remember watching RichHarris’s “Rich Harris - Rethinking reactivity” video introducing Svelte 3, and he discussed an earlier academic spreadsheet concept. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao I used the following “terminal” spreadsheets VisiCalc on a Radio Shack Model III Microsoft MultiPlan on MS-DOS Lotus 1-2-3 on MS-DOS
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    An interesting product! It was shipped by a company (if I remember right) called "Personal Software" or some such. They marketed software they collected from individual developers. VisiCalc was their one runaway success. So much so, they changed their name to VisiCorp.
- efreak 6y ago
  Far less likely to support modem formats and features, though.
k2enemy 6y ago
I'd also like to point out the spreadsheet functionality of org-mode as a terminal based spreadsheet. I actually started using org-mode for this feature. I had been using sc-im, but found it limiting, especially the because you cannot pass a range of cells to a custom function. In org-mode this is no problem at all, plus there are many more built in functions.

simmons 6y ago

I used sc back in the day for many light tasks. I had no idea that James Gosling was an author. (Or didn't know who James Gosling was, at the time.) It's great to see that it's being maintained in some form!

Jaruzel 6y ago

Coming from a DOS background, this gave me nostalgia for Lotus-123.

DNied 6y ago

Cool. I use original sc almost every day. Is this from the same code base?

dividedbyzero 6y ago

Genuinely curious, what reasons are there to use this instead of a GUI spreadsheet application?

breakfastduck 6y ago
I guess in the case where you don’t have access to a desktop environment. I’m also curious to know if there’s a reason to use this if you do have access to a gui...
- efreak 6y ago
  Speed. Simplicity. All you want to do is update a single value or insert a row into a spreadsheet? You can probably be done using the terminal application before Excel even finishes opening. On my computers, I use Excel so rarely--around once a month or so-- and do full reboots so rarely that it always interrupts me as soon as I open it to finish applying an update to office. And of course, since I'm on Windows, Excel has locked the file (usually just a csv, but one with a dozen or more columns, so hard to do with a text editor) so nothing else can open it in the meantime, and I have to wait several minutes for the modal popup to go away before I can finish appending a timestamp to the end of the file.
uneekname 6y ago
I'm not a fan of LibreCalc, and I don't know of many other GUI spreadsheet programs for Linux. A terminal-based program is also attractive because it can easily be scripted. I once had to use sc-im because when I tried to open a ~very~ large file it crashed all the GUI programs I tried.
- tssva 6y ago
  Gnumeric and Calligra Sheets are 2 other GUI spreadsheets for Linux. Calligra is the name for what used to be the KOffice suite from the KDE project. I can't speak to the usefulness of either especially since I have no idea what your use case is.
framecowbird 6y ago

jerrysievert 6y ago

I first discovered sc by accident: sc was the "fast" abbreviation for "score" on the MUDs I was working on at the time. made for an interesting shock and great find once I realized what it was. I still use sc sometimes, especially when I want super-easy computations in a very small window without a ton of extra "chrome" getting in my way. it makes layout math very easy and fast. it made me smile seeing it, and seeing the grey link show up here on HN.

ape4 6y ago

SC original authors are James Gosling and Mark Weiser (!)

ForOldHack 6y ago

ncurses gives it arrow key navigation, this is cool. Every single distribution needs this to run WITH disk partitioning software. EVERY. As it is, I have to slipstream DOS box, and run as-easy-as... royal pain. Best reason to run linux ever. ( besides the nifty tee shirts )

lain98 6y ago

Fun fact, the author of sc James Gosling went on to design the java programming language.

ngcc_hk 6y ago

Nurses. Sadly. The other thread using python to do a II has more platform because python And its Screen have more platform.

LeoPanthera 6y ago

This pairs well with WordGrinder, a word processor (not text editor) for the terminal. http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/ http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/

29athrowaway 6y ago

Remember Lotus 123? Quattro Pro? There was a time where terminal spreadsheets was the regular way to work with spreadsheets.

SomeHacker44 6y ago

I used Visicalc in the early 80s (maybe first around 1982). Reminds me of a colorful version of that. Did some awesome things with Visicalc and Wordperfect back in the 80s.

0xdeadb00f 6y ago

No really about the software itself but it's fantastic it uses regular 'ol make (and it looks like it provides a BSD makefile too!). I'm seeing more and more of what I feel are bloated and unnecessary build systems, ninja, cmake, etc.

kohtatsu 6y ago

I absolutely adore sc(1) and enjoy whiling away time by crapping lovingly hand-crafted data in it.

fiatjaf 6y ago

Visidata isn't exactly a spreadsheet, but deserves a mention. https://www.visidata.org/ https://www.visidata.org/

watchdogtimer 6y ago

I've been using sc for many years. As others have noted, it's lightweight and fast. Some of it's unusual features are: 1. Each cell can contain both a label and a value, so you don't need an extra column to label numeric values. 2. Cell editing is done using vi keybindings. 3. Files are stored in a very readable, pure text format. The biggest drawback of sc is there is no undo. If you delete something by mistake, you can't bring it back. This is the biggest reason to choose SC-IM, IMHO. Unfortunately, the menu commands in SC-IM are not the same as the ones in sc, which is a real problem on a keyboard-based spreadsheet and you have developed sc muscle memory :(. SC-IM's help menu is also hard to read in narrow terminal window, because it uses fixed-width line endings that cause every line to improperly wrap. The fact that sc is included by default in most, if not all, Linux distributions makes it so convenient to install and use I likely won't ever change.