

Ethersheet – An open-source collaborative spreadsheet - cooperq
https://ethersheet.org

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binarymax
Looks like a great start! First thing that comes to mind - let arrow keys move
the focus to the adjacent cells. Without this it is a huge usability loss.

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based2
[http://framacalc.org/_start](http://framacalc.org/_start)

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cooperq
Interesting, it looks like it's based of ethercalc which is also a great
project. We were trying to go in a different direction though and be a little
bit more user friendly and also work on mobile.

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newscracker
I gave it a quick spin and it seems like it needs more work to behave like a
spreadsheet.

Even simple circular references are not detected right now. For example, I put
some numbers from A1 through A5 and then put a SUM(A1:A6) into A6. It added
everything up (including the sum itself) and keeps updating A6 with the sum of
A1:A5 every time I move from one cell to another using Enter or Tab. You can
see this at
[https://ethersheet.org/s/IsThisAwesomeNow](https://ethersheet.org/s/IsThisAwesomeNow)

And also, as @binarymax stated, arrow keys to navigate (along with F2 to edit
a cell instead of the default of putting a cell in edit mode), usage of arrow
keys within formulas to get cell references (instead of typing the cell
reference), easy ways to format cells, easy way to extend the width or height
of columns/rows...I presume there's a large backlog of features to implement.
:)

Right now, this is far behind EtherCalc in terms of features and usability.

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fiatjaf
I was looking for a spreadsheet which I could use to implement custom formulas
that would interact with a client-side app, and embed the sheets in the app
also, so I started building this: [https://github.com/fiatjaf/react-
microspreadsheet](https://github.com/fiatjaf/react-microspreadsheet)

Here's a hosted version for test:
[http://sheets.alhur.es/test](http://sheets.alhur.es/test)

It has a lot of features (try the edge cases if you feel like and report your
experience to me, please), but it also has some bugs with, for example, the
click-at-a-cell-to-add-it-as-input-to-the-currently-being-edited-cell. I'm
seeking to make this work.

There are some bugs with the formula parsing too, but they are easy to solve,
I'm just being lazy. I was using a very nasty raw regex parsing, but I
switched to a Jison implementation that is more reliable, I guess. I've never
done this before, though.

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eddyparkinson
I wish I had your design skills.

My spreadsheet sideproject: www.cellmaster.com.au

Small business wants to automate. At the moment they use spreadsheets, email
and web forms to interact with customers, but want these to work together. I
have seen 20 requests a week, on a single forum, for small bits of code. Code
to do very simple automation tasks. I am making it so they can automate with
only basic spreadsheet skills.

Happy to chat with you eddyparkinson after the at add gmail dot com

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dryman
Looks pretty similar to ethercalc...
[https://ethercalc.org](https://ethercalc.org)

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spoomor
Like ethercalc, you can use any URL, even non-secret ones like:
[https://ethersheet.org/s/1](https://ethersheet.org/s/1)

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u124556
I love that it's anonymous. It would be cool if it had a read only version
(using a random url) to share. Like piratepad (etherpad) has.

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tedsuo
It doesn't currently mention this on the site, but one use case for Ethersheet
is to embed it as a component in a larger application.

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sequoia
How do you get a sum of a range of cells?

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cooperq
The same way as you would in excel `=SUM(A1:A11)`

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ilaksh
How is this better than ethercalc?

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beefman
It sure seems lighter/faster. Other differences:

* It doesn't support drag to enter ranges in formulas

* Arrow keys don't move the selection

* It doesn't have nifty pie menus for dragging a selection

* It doesn't support ctrl+z undo

Does EtherCalc have multiple worksheets? Ethersheet does.

EtherCalc's tabs-and-forms UI is clunky.

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cooperq
The undo functionality is actually almost there, I think we just don't have an
interface for it. The arrow keys thing should be easy to implement. I will add
it to github, and of course accept a pull request! We definitely need to
accept ranges for formulas or some up with some easy way to do that.

The project as a whole is definitely unfinished but we have been working on it
for so long and lost some motivation. I wanted to just get it out there to at
least re-motivate myself to work on it.

~~~
beefman
Please note, I don't think all the features I listed are desirable. (Pie menus
for dragging gestures? Pretty hokey.)

Ethersheet allows typing ranges in formulas and that is possibly enough.
Dragging to choose a range can be nice but it has to be implemented carefully.
When to stop acquiring cells for the range and return focus to the formula
editor? Some versions of Excel do this badly. For example, after dragging to
enter a range you use arrow keys to balance parens. Excel thinks you are still
selecting cells and inserts multiple ranges into your formula.

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greggawatt
EtherSheet Got Me Laid!

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sitkack
EtherSheet Got Me Paid!

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tesladethray
I love spreadsheets. So much so that I even mentioned Excel in dating
profiles. But Excel is expensive, OpenOffice slow and buggy, and Google is...
well, Google. Ethersheet is a fast, effective, and reliable alternative to get
your spreadsheeting done. I love spreadsheets and so I love Ethersheet. If
you're like me, you will, too.

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monstermonster
This post reminds me of [http://www.zombo.com/](http://www.zombo.com/)

FYI you can rent Excel, Outlook, Word, Powerpoint, OneNote, Access and
publisher for three beers a month at London prices. That's pretty cheap and it
works online and offline.

Agree with OpenOffice though.

