3 ms·
A lot of my ideas (aside from what you've already got) were very programmer-focused and not very fleshed out, so probably won't be much use. Here are some thoug
by jcparkyn 3y ago
A lot of my ideas (aside from what you've already got) were very programmer-focused and not very fleshed out, so probably won't be much use. Here are some thoughts after playing with it for a bit though:
- I think you should lean more heavily into the 'naming things' aspect:
- Being able to have a separate "display name" and "tag" (or something like that) for tables and columns would be a big improvement when referencing them in formulae. These would be linked by default. In excel, I always feel pressured to simplify table and column names because otherwise the formulae are nigh unreadable.
- I was a bit disappointed that column names aren't used when referencing other cells. Using plain A1 names is especially confusing when the column names don't even show the associated letter. Excel has a decent implementation for this inside tables, but it would be even better with the previous point.
- The controls for block selection etc. feel pretty unintuitive to me, until I figured out that I could click/drag the block headings to go straight to block selection mode. These definitely need their own hover/cursor effect to make this obvious. The fact that it stays in block selection mode when I click another table is also confusing, since it doesn't if I initially have nothing selected. Some improvements might be:
- Dragging the space at the top-left of a block should act the same as dragging the title (i.e. move the block).
- Preferably, the corner resize handles should appear whenever the mouse is nearby, without needing to be in a specific mode or have the block active.
- Either make it so that switching blocks _always_ enters block selection mode first, or only when the title is selected. The inconsistency depending on the current selection feels unnecessarily confusing.
- Perhaps most importantly, the hover effect should always show what's about to be selected.
- First class functions (a la LAMBDA from google sheets).
- I would've preferred if the generators just worked as functions which return arrays, rather than having a dedicated column selection UI. E.g. `= SORT(FILTER('Data'!B:B, 'Data'!C:C > 4))` (even better with a pipe operator).
- Formulas unequivocally need to allow line breaks and indentation.
- It should be possible to sort/filter columns in place temporarily for quick analysis, without any effect on dependencies or the underlying data.
- The filter blocks seem to lose all type information etc, making them pretty much useless - I assume this is already on your roadmap somewhere?
- You definitely need a "create > grid block" context menu item when right clicking on empty space (from the guide it seems like this might already exist?).