4 ms·

I've been having this nagging thought lately: what if web app UIs started off as in-browser spreadsheets and evolved from that? After all 90% of web apps are j

by Tade0 6y ago

I've been having this nagging thought lately: what if web app UIs started off as in-browser spreadsheets and evolved from that? After all 90% of web apps are just forms with some validation and lists of things - a spreadsheet can do all that with greater flexibility as a bonus.

nicoburns 6y ago
> just forms with some validation and lists of things - a spreadsheet can do all that with greater flexibility as a bonus. Speadsheets are great at a lot of things, but data validation doesn't tend to be one of them. In fact, I'd argue that's one of the main reasons to move off of spreadsheets: to make your data more structured. It may well be possible to create a spreadsheet-like UI that is good at these things though. And I can certainly see that being successful. It'd be difficult to tradeoff flexible vs constrained though.
- DavidPeiffer 6y ago
  > Speadsheets are great at a lot of things, but data validation doesn't tend to be one of them. What limitations are you thinking of? I can go to Data -> Data Tools -> Data Validation and restrict to whole number, decimal, list, date, time, or string length. If that's insufficient, you can create a custom formula which has to evaluate to TRUE for the input to be considered valid. Regex isn't supported out of the box, but quite a number of string functions are, and there are readily available Regex user defined functions (VBA called via formala) available online. You can also customize the error alert that would be displayed to the user if they try to input something invalid. I think it'd work quite well for many MVP/single page web apps.
  - grey-area 6y ago
    The question is not what a sufficiently motivated competent person can do with the tools. It's what a sufficiently motivated incompetent person can do to your data with the tools. Infinite flexibility in the tooling means infinite ways to mess the database up in subtle and/or irredeemable ways, and a formula in a cell or even a regular expression are not great ways to tidy up real-world data, you often want autocorrect, autosuggest, defaults and friendly error messages for bad data rather than just ERROR IN CELL G91. When you reach that level of complexity it becomes much harder to build something useful with a spreadsheet-like tool alone. It is a really interesting idea though and for certain classes of data could really work well.
    - rvba 6y ago
      For many Excel projects you dont need data validation though.
lopatin 6y ago
Love the idea. An app that evolves from a spreadsheet is pretty brilliant, mate.
jason2323 6y ago
lol. One of my observations from my experience at startups : if you want to create a B2B SaaS company, convert a company’s spreadsheets into a webapp and voila!
nsm 6y ago
Airtable (airtable.com) is doing something like that. It’s less Excel and more a souped up relational database, so a slightly different angle where you surface the CRUD of a CRUD app to the user.
- hermitcrab 6y ago
  I see Airtable as an online database with the ease of use of Excel. I created a system for a local charity using Airtable. I found it worked really well and the charity are delighted.
sidpatil 6y ago
I think Microsoft dropped the ball big-time by not making it easy to export an Excel workbook or Access project as a mobile-ready turnkey Web application. (It looks like it's possible to do, but not easy to do—from what I can tell, it either requires Office 365 or third-party software.) If that functionality existed and was easy to use, it could have been a very convenient option for businesses running their operations on Access database and looking to take advantage of mobile. I know Microsoft has InfoPath and Forms, but those aren't Access, so they're not going to be as popular.
breck 6y ago
I figured out how to do this years ago, even before I worked at Microsoft (and pitched it while there a number of times). It wasn't easy, and there was a lot to figure out, but the end result is starting to look pretty simple: https://youtu.be/vn2aJA5ANUc?t=145 https://youtu.be/vn2aJA5ANUc?t=145 https://github.com/publicdomaincompany/copypaster https://github.com/publicdomaincompany/copypaster
- Tade0 6y ago
  > In 2021 let's start making all web forms copy/pasteable. I love the premise - will give it a go.
  - breck 6y ago
    Great! If you take any notes on pain points trying to implement that pattern, would love to hear about them! My email is in profile
    - Tade0 6y ago
      Sure - I'll let you know.
- pwdisswordfish0 6y ago
  The copypaster.publicdomaincompany.com URL in the project About box is broken.
  - breck 6y ago
    Fixed! Thank you for letting me know!

by Tade0 6y ago

nicoburns 6y ago

> just forms with some validation and lists of things - a spreadsheet can do all that with greater flexibility as a bonus. Speadsheets are great at a lot of things, but data validation doesn't tend to be one of them. In fact, I'd argue that's one of the main reasons to move off of spreadsheets: to make your data more structured. It may well be possible to create a spreadsheet-like UI that is good at these things though. And I can certainly see that being successful. It'd be difficult to tradeoff flexible vs constrained though.

DavidPeiffer 6y ago
> Speadsheets are great at a lot of things, but data validation doesn't tend to be one of them. What limitations are you thinking of? I can go to Data -> Data Tools -> Data Validation and restrict to whole number, decimal, list, date, time, or string length. If that's insufficient, you can create a custom formula which has to evaluate to TRUE for the input to be considered valid. Regex isn't supported out of the box, but quite a number of string functions are, and there are readily available Regex user defined functions (VBA called via formala) available online. You can also customize the error alert that would be displayed to the user if they try to input something invalid. I think it'd work quite well for many MVP/single page web apps.
- grey-area 6y ago
  The question is not what a sufficiently motivated competent person can do with the tools. It's what a sufficiently motivated incompetent person can do to your data with the tools. Infinite flexibility in the tooling means infinite ways to mess the database up in subtle and/or irredeemable ways, and a formula in a cell or even a regular expression are not great ways to tidy up real-world data, you often want autocorrect, autosuggest, defaults and friendly error messages for bad data rather than just ERROR IN CELL G91. When you reach that level of complexity it becomes much harder to build something useful with a spreadsheet-like tool alone. It is a really interesting idea though and for certain classes of data could really work well.
  - rvba 6y ago
    For many Excel projects you dont need data validation though.

lopatin 6y ago

Love the idea. An app that evolves from a spreadsheet is pretty brilliant, mate.

jason2323 6y ago

lol. One of my observations from my experience at startups : if you want to create a B2B SaaS company, convert a company’s spreadsheets into a webapp and voila!

nsm 6y ago

Airtable (airtable.com) is doing something like that. It’s less Excel and more a souped up relational database, so a slightly different angle where you surface the CRUD of a CRUD app to the user.

hermitcrab 6y ago
I see Airtable as an online database with the ease of use of Excel. I created a system for a local charity using Airtable. I found it worked really well and the charity are delighted.

sidpatil 6y ago

I think Microsoft dropped the ball big-time by not making it easy to export an Excel workbook or Access project as a mobile-ready turnkey Web application. (It looks like it's possible to do, but not easy to do—from what I can tell, it either requires Office 365 or third-party software.) If that functionality existed and was easy to use, it could have been a very convenient option for businesses running their operations on Access database and looking to take advantage of mobile. I know Microsoft has InfoPath and Forms, but those aren't Access, so they're not going to be as popular.

breck 6y ago

I figured out how to do this years ago, even before I worked at Microsoft (and pitched it while there a number of times). It wasn't easy, and there was a lot to figure out, but the end result is starting to look pretty simple: https://youtu.be/vn2aJA5ANUc?t=145 https://youtu.be/vn2aJA5ANUc?t=145 https://github.com/publicdomaincompany/copypaster https://github.com/publicdomaincompany/copypaster

Tade0 6y ago
> In 2021 let's start making all web forms copy/pasteable. I love the premise - will give it a go.
- breck 6y ago
  Great! If you take any notes on pain points trying to implement that pattern, would love to hear about them! My email is in profile
  - Tade0 6y ago
    Sure - I'll let you know.
pwdisswordfish0 6y ago
The copypaster.publicdomaincompany.com URL in the project About box is broken.
- breck 6y ago
  Fixed! Thank you for letting me know!