
New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline - patrickaljord
http://googledrive.blogspot.com/2013/12/newsheets.html?m=1
======
gdulli
I'm at my first company that uses Google apps and it's been a bad experience.
There's so much about email and calendaring that Outlook/Exchange got right
that it's hard to be without it after taking it for granted.

Using a native rich application is always going to be superior to building a
web app on top of a browser. Once you're used to real applications, Gmail and
the other apps aren't suitable for anything more than light usage. It's not
just the features that are missing, it's UI responsiveness and usability.
Hosting an application inside a browser is so awkward in ways that real
applications aren't. I can't assume I can right click and get anything useful,
I don't know if I'm going to get the browser's menu or the app's. The concept
of a consistent menu bar you can access with hotkeys is gone. Online/offline
will never be seamless and consistent across apps. And the input lag is
intolerable.

Having all of my documents stored centrally is a real, but small, convenience
to get in exchange for everything that's given up. And as far as cost goes,
I'd prefer that any money my company might be saving be deducted from my
paycheck if it would mean they'd get off of Google apps.

~~~
mierle
I recently went through an acquisition where we transitioned from Google Apps
to the Microsoft suite. I do not share your love of Microsoft's suite.

Among the many problems I have with the Microsoft suite, Outlook is at the top
of my list for generating the most frustration. GMail's priority inbox and
new-style inbox where machine learning is used to sort out mail is a
productivity booster for me. With Outlook, I regularly lose important mail
because it is buried under the difficult to filter masses of other email.

I could go on about how the lack of robust collaboration facilities are a
direct time waster for my team, but I don't want to hijack this thread
further...

~~~
freyr
So, we all like what we're used to.

To the OP, insisting that apps running in browsers will never match native
apps in terms of UX, that's a very audacious claim.

There are many powerful, competent, and well-funded entities with a vested
interest in improving the web app experience (including Google). I wouldn't
claim they're doomed from the start. This could be just another example of a
disruptive technology, that's initially lacking in certain conventional
metrics, but has a lot of room for improvement above and beyond the entrenched
competition.

~~~
gdulli
> There are many powerful, competent, and well-funded entities with a vested
> interest in improving the web app experience (including Google). I wouldn't
> claim they're doomed from the start.

I've been using gmail for almost 10 years. I liked it from the start. But it's
getting worse, not better. It's extremely slow compared to what I'm used to
with Exchange and Outlook, and navigating around is more of a chore. How do I,
for example, see who's in on an email list? I can't just right-click on the
name of the list and see the members? (And don't even get me started on the
new compose experience mess.)

If Gmail was being continuously improved, I'd have a reason to be optimistic
about it. I like being given free storage, but as far as usability goes, I
have fonder memories of Eudora.

~~~
bhouston
Gmail UI sucks in part because they are going for the masses, not the power
user. It isn't HTML5's fault.

~~~
millstone
A lot of it is due to the limitations of HTML. For example, HTML is why Gmail
paginates about as well as PHP app from 1998, instead of allowing you to just
scroll through all of them like a native client.

~~~
arthur_debert
Pagination does have it's advantages, namely: \- Linking \- Easier to grok
where you are in the result set ( 3 out of 5 instead of the scroll bar that
changes height)

~~~
randac
Yeah, it works great in search results, much easier to understand for the
average user...

Page 1: 1-20 of about 26... cool not too many to scan through

Page 2: 21-40 of about 46... oh

Page 3: 41-60 of about 67... errr

Page 4: 61-80 of about 87... seriously?

------
yan
Am I the only one that is distracted by the name "Google Sheets?" It doesn't
exactly roll of the tongue, awkward to say and doesn't exactly scream
"spreadsheets" when placed next to other Google Docs (Drive?) products. It can
just as easily have been a presentation tool, or something else entirely.
Although, it's probably ambiguous only to me and for most other people, sheets
== spreadsheets.

~~~
Double_Cast
I propose _Gcell_ for slang. It's quicker, analogous to _Gmail_ , and vaguely
reminiscent of _Excel_.

~~~
andrewflnr
IIRC they're trying to avoid GStuff-type names.

------
nailer
Can we insert rows normally now? In a discoverable, intuitive way, like Edit
-> Insert rows used in every other spreadsheet ever?

Currently the solution is this:
[https://support.google.com/drive/answer/44684?hl=en](https://support.google.com/drive/answer/44684?hl=en)

Eg, to add 30 rows, select 30 random rows, no matter what they are, as long as
your selection is 30 high. Then you right click the row area, you get the
option to insert 30 rows.

Who does UX for these products? Surely this didn't test well?

~~~
alexman
The one thing that really annoys me is that they don't have a keyboard
shortcut for adding a new row. Now I always have to

1) Shift space to select the current row

2) Press the "right-click" button the keyboard

3) Press the down arrow 4 times to select "Insert 1 above"

4) Press enter

Or else I've to use the mouse, which is equally slow. It's really silly given
that how often people insert rows.

~~~
tidon12
Insert row is: 1) Shift + space (highlight current row) 2) alt + I (open
insert menu) 3) r (insert row above)

vs Excel which is: 1) Shift + space (highlight current row) 2) ctrl + shift +
"+" (insert row above)

Slightly different key pattern, but it does exist. Difference probably exist
b/c ctrl + "+" is reserved in the browser for zoom.

~~~
alexman
Thanks for the tip! That's faster than what I do. I still wish they add a
dedicated shortcut for it though so that I can do it with one keystroke (like
the Ctrl + Shift + "+" in Excel).

------
discardorama
"works offline" ... in Chrome only!

~~~
azakai
It's been years and still Google only implements offline mode in docs for
Chrome? This looks shameful, but perhaps there is some reason that Google
people reading HN can explain?

From what I can tell this requires a Chrome app from the Chrome Web Store. So
it is not standard HTML5 stuff. Does Google intend to fully support non-Chrome
browsers? This behavior seems to show otherwise.

~~~
wodenokoto
While it is hard to say what Google expects to do or not to do, it does seem
like Google are building an app platform on Chrome in parallel to the so
called web app platform (HTML5 + Javascript).

~~~
motti
Google originally pioneered Gears as a way to get webapps to work offline (at
a time when HTML5 was still being hashed out by WHATWG) and tried to get it
adopted as an open standard ([http://gearsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/gears-
and-standards....](http://gearsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/gears-and-
standards.html)).

Spreadsheets had (view-only) offline capability via Gears as far back as 2008
(see [http://googledocs.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/view-your-
presentat...](http://googledocs.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/view-your-
presentations-and.html)) but this was then discontinued in favour of the
standards methods. FWIW, they have been helping with the HTML5 storage APIs
from the beginning.

The HTML5 way of doing offline is AppCache, which Google have used for other
products ([http://googlecode.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/gmail-for-mobile-
ht...](http://googlecode.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/gmail-for-mobile-html5-series-
using.html)) and are presumably using here (or the alternative FileSystem API
- [http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/file-
system/pub/FileSystem/](http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/file-
system/pub/FileSystem/)).

I suspect the Chrome-only limitation is due to the differences in the way is
currently implemented, for instance:

* Until Firefox 26's release yesterday, it would prompt for each site that wanted to use AppCache ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6881368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6881368)).

* Firefox doesn't handle the no-store directive well

* Chrome Apps can be granted unlimited storage ([https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/storage#unl...](https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/storage#unlimited))

~~~
azakai
If it worked in Chrome outside of the store, it would be more plausible. But
requiring the Chrome Store seems to indicate it is not using just standard
HTML5 stuff like appCache. The issue of limited storage or not seems
insufficient to explain this.

Very disappointing.

------
csmuk
Fed up of all the Google Docs fanfare...

Excel features...

fast - check. Powerful - check. Works offline - check.

Let's get a little closer to google docs...

Works online - check. Edit in browser - check. Edit on mobile device - check.
Share with other people - check. Cheap - check (o365 sub is really cheap per
seat). Can customise the UI - check. Can deal with huge sheets - check. Can
extend, script etc - check.

Google docs buys me nothing.

~~~
xhrpost
I use MS Office occasionally at work but even that small amount of usage has
me wanting to use Google Docs instead. -Someone has the Excel file open on the
network? Oh, read-only for you my friend. Have to save? Better track down
whoever has it open. -No revision/change tracking. Have to always be alert as
to who is changing what and when. Often simpler just to make a new file and
add to the clutter on the network folder.

~~~
csmuk
You're doing it wrong.

sharepoint/svn avoids these issues.

~~~
wutbrodo
Isn't that just another point in his favor? It's easy to say "you're doing it
wrong, just learn how to use these other technologies so Office works
correctly", but most users would obviously prefer a product where "doing it
right" is the default behavior. I'm speaking of course only with respect to
the feature being discussed here (collaborative editing); I don't have much of
an opinion on Office vs Drive overall.

~~~
xhrpost
Exactly, not everyone using these files are coders or computer savvy enough to
tolerate SVN or GIT.

~~~
csmuk
We have many non technical users doing just fine with TortoiseSVN on
windows...

If it's a command line app they'd be lost so that might be the basis of your
argument.

~~~
ams6110
So you have users editing Office documents and committing changes to SVN and
you don't get conflicts? Or if you do, they are able to resolve them?

~~~
csmuk
Yes you do get and can resolve the conflicts.

Despite common knowledge you can diff and merge office documents with
TortoiseSVN. All it does is fire up their built in review/diff tools.

~~~
jessaustin
For normal office workers, this contraption really works better than
collaboration (and change tracking if you need it) via Google Docs? Wow.

------
r00fus
Conditional Formatting is a huge win.

The lack of this feature kept me using Excel when my collaborators complained
about stale status colors.

I'll have to give it a test drive again soon.

~~~
mikegioia
I've been using conditional formatting for over a year. It was pretty buried
in the options though.

------
mortenjorck
Good to see filtering is finally a client-only action. It always struck me as
strange that what was effectively a view change (on the order of scrolling
through the document or changing the active page) propagated to other
collaborators.

------
wudf
Big fan of gdocs here. Some of the new functions are going to really be great.
My only complaint is the display changes. The default row size has increased
to 21 from 17 and size 10 font no longer fits in a 17 pixel row. The best
option now is size 9 font on 19 pixel rows. It may seem nitpicky, but when I
design a spreadsheet, I use a lot of screenspace and this really adds up.

------
georgewfraser
I'm skeptical of the claim that it's more powerful. Running a simple
performance test, 10,000 formulas of the form: B1=MOD(A1+32,1000) re-
evaluation takes about a second, which is slightly slower than the old
version. For reference, Excel can do 1,000,000 of these formulas,
significantly faster.

------
jcampbell1
As an ex-excel power user, this is a huge step in the right direction. F4/F2
now seem to work. Unfortunately there is no way to turn of editing directly in
cells. There are strange bugs like auto column sizing doesn't work correctly.
Merging cells is a cancer, it would be nice if the drop down offered centering
across selection.

While this is still not Excel for windows, it feels better than Excel on the
Mac. I think I will start using it.

------
tartehk
Spreadsheets have pretty much been the same for the past 10 years so it's good
to finally see some movement in this area. For a time being, I was sure that
Google gave up on spreadsheets.

------
rajat
I am curious: are documents in Google Sheet scanned by Google's software bots
to determine stuff about me? I can't seem to find a Privacy Policy document
specific to documents in Google docs. How about if I pay for the service (can
I pay for the service)?

------
scrumper
I'll be excited if:

\- I can explicitly name and lock a given version (i.e. a checkpoint). This is
a _huge_ missing feature at my company, where we rely on collaboratively-
edited spreadsheets

\- I can select non-contiguous cells

\- I can insert multiple rows easily

\- I can copy formulas into Excel

------
gcanyon
I've used ms office and google apps for years. For lightweight day to day use,
google, hands down. Nearly every document I create is shared, and MS as of a
few years back doesn't compare. I haven't tried the new office.

For serious spreadsheet work with layout requirements, Numbers, easy. Yes,
Numbers. For super-serious something or other I hear Excel is unbeatable, but
I don't know what functions Excel has that google doesn't, let alone Numbers,
and Numbers has the one feature _every_ spreadsheet should have and almost
none do (certainly not excel/google): allow two sheets on a single page. How
often do you have to juggle column widths/cell merges to get different layouts
in two parts of your worksheet? No more! With Numbers you can draw out
multiple separate sheets, each with their own column widths/row heights and
other formatting, no problem.

And for large data sets, or data that requires extensive filtering or
specialized presentation, FileMaker, no question. It blows all spreadsheets
away when it comes to: hundreds of thousands of rows (or millions), and it
supports limitless separate views of the same data. Anyone who does serious
work in excel that includes large data, normalize-able data, or extensive
presentation or filtering, you owe it to yourself to check out FileMaker.

------
freefrancisco
Can they finally let me select groups of cells that are not adjacent to each
other for charts?

------
sondh
I really appreciate the performance boost. We have a quite complicated sheet
before and adding 20 more rows at a time is annoying. Yes I know there are
ways to add 20+ but the default low limit shows how slow it is. With this new
system, Google is confident enough to allow user to add 1000 rows at a time
(default value). Scrolling seems to be very smooth too. Overall a great
upgrade!

------
newrui
Do feeds still work like they used to via the same APIs? I'm not able to get a
json feed out via a link like before for some reason.

~~~
CatMtKing
They don't :(. Stick with the previous format if you need API support.

[https://support.google.com/drive/answer/3543688](https://support.google.com/drive/answer/3543688)

~~~
rayshan
Thanks for this, super helpful. Let's hope they add things back in like Apple.

------
g8oz
Personally I'm more interested in projects like Webodf
([http://webodf.org/](http://webodf.org/)) and it's integration with OwnCloud
6 ([http://owncloud.org/](http://owncloud.org/)). Stick it on a Synology NAS
at home and I've got my own office suite in the cloud.

------
dkl
Can you select multiple, discontiguous cells or columns or rows yet?? That's
the thing that kills me that is not implemented.

~~~
martinpw
No, it is still not there. First thing I tried. :-(

------
justinsb
Offline is awesome; obviously because it means it works anywhere, but also I
presume this means that all formula evaluation is now done locally, i.e.
"instantly". I am pretty sure that before the server was involved in (some?)
recalculation, which caused sluggishness.

~~~
FigBug
I still find it bizarre that the actual files still aren't synced in the
google drive desktop app. Instead they are synced and stored in the browser.
I'm assuming this means you have to go into the browser and get the latest
versions before you go offline, rather than the desktop app keeping you in
sync. The desktop app really feels neglected, like it's a checkbox feature to
compete with Dropbox.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I still find it bizarre that the actual files still aren't synced in the
> google drive desktop app.

I suspect one of the reasons for that is that the native storage _isn 't_ a
file format at all, and that all of a users sheets (and other files for the
Google apps) are stored in a set of entries in an online database.

> The desktop app really feels neglected, like it's a checkbox feature to
> compete with Dropbox.

The ability to store traditional files in Drive and access them through the
same web UI is a feature that was added, I suspect, to make the Drive
interface usable as a one-stop browser-based information access point (a "My
documents" for Chromebooks, in a sense), and the desktop app is a feature that
provides syncing to encourage people to store desktop files in a way which
also makes them readily accessible to that interface, as well as a _me too_
feature to compete with Dropbox.

~~~
FigBug
> I suspect one of the reasons for that is that the native storage isn't a
> file format at all, and that all of a users sheets (and other files for the
> Google apps) are stored in a set of entries in an online database.

If the DB entries can be duplicated to the users browser, then they could be
serialized to a file in the users google drive. This would allow people to
back up their files, move files out of google drive when it gets full and move
them back in when they need them. That guy that lost all his files a few
months ago would have been ok. I can't see a good reason the .gsheet files are
just bookmarks. I want my files.

Also, if somebody from Google is reading this, please add a reconnect option
to Google drive. Exiting and re-running drive is a pain after every network
failure, hibernation, etc.

------
robinhowlett
I'm also seeing a nice change to using custom formulas/scripts.

Normally when I return a 2D array, most of the grid is results from the
CONTINUE function - now it writes the actual cell value calculated.

This is a lot nicer for then sorting this data.

~~~
scrumper
Good spot - this is much better. I have to copy & paste values from CONTINUE
cells now otherwise sorting is completely broken.

------
dav-id
Recently I have been working on a project with a client where we have been
using SkyDrive and its online Excel for simple and basic collaboration on a
few documents.

The thing that I love about this setup is having the original Excel document
sat there on the skydrive ready to be edited in the full Excel when more
advanced editing is required and seamlessly updated on the web (although not
at the same time, which is something I hope will be possible in the future).

------
amorphid
I have tried multiple times to use Outlook and Exchange based email, most
recently a couple months ago. I do not like it. At all. If I was offered a job
that forced me to use Outlook, I'd probably turn it down (or bribe IT to make
my email accessible through Gmail).

For all of it's flaws, I frikkin' love Gmail. Perhaps my favorite parts are
the spam filtering and the filters.

------
callesgg
Some really nice stuff however.... Still no zooming.

~~~
jessaustin
Maybe I'm misunderstanding... does <ctrl>-<plus> not work for you?

~~~
callesgg
That zoom's all the Buttons aswell.

------
pconf
I don't use Google docs/sheets/gmail/... due to their terms of service. Why
give Google a perpetual right to do anything they want with any content put in
a Google app? [https://www.google.com/google-
d-s/terms.html](https://www.google.com/google-d-s/terms.html)

------
oshineye
It's still proprietary software. Why would I use this instead of Libreoffice?

~~~
FigBug
It is convenient. But I am surprised so many people are willing to put their
business's data into a spreadsheet where they can't even get the native files.
If this takes off it's going to be lock in 100x worse than Excel ever was.

~~~
RokStdy
Why? If you can get your data out as CSV? How are you locked in at all, or at
least, any more than with Microsoft?

p.s. According to a sheet I have saved I can download my info as: _.xlsx_.ods
(OpenDocument Format) _.pdf_.csv _.txt_.html

~~~
FigBug
When documents are converted formats features, formatting etc will be lost. If
you export everything as CSV you loose all your formulas etc. xlsx and ods are
better, but not perfect.

If you could export all your documents in the native format and import them
into LibreOffice you'd still lose features, but as LibreOffice improved it's
import you'd lose less.

With convert at export data is permanently lost. With convert at import, no
data lost permanently lost, it just may not be currently available.

Also if you could backup in native format you could import into a google
account if your first account is blocked/lost, instead you have to go through
the import/export conversion twice.

Also, with Excel, once you have a computer running Windows / Excel, you can't
lose data if a feature is changed / dropped. Just don't upgrade. With Google
Docs, you have no choice to upgrade to the latest version. It may not even be
a dropped feature, you spreadsheets may accidentally rely on a buggy feature,
and when it's fixed your spreadsheets behave differently with no warning.

------
asah
Google Spreadsheets is VB/DBase/FoxPro for the web and like them, you can
build a nice-sized product or company and upgrade to a "real" database for the
tables you need, e.g. enterprise search on SOLR/Lucene. Specifically, you get
super flexible, shareable, cheap cloud database with built-in UI, APIs,
version and access control and more. Little or no training required.

My company has over 3,000 sheets (7,500+ worksheets) and over 100 "types" of
tables. Compared with companies that used traditional RDBMS+app architectures,
we've saved big $ between data entry and engineering. It allowed us to skip VC
financing and win our market bootstrapping to profitability.

hope this helps,

adam

world's leading source for specialty/artisan products

bbfdirect.com

get office snacks! bbfdirect.com/office-snacks

------
loceng
Been hoping for this for a long time. Happy it's here.

------
goler
and Paste Transpose!

------
tobyjsullivan
I am excited about this to a very unnerving degree. Perhaps I should have been
an accountant.

------
L3monPi3
I just activated the new sheets, create a new sheet and could't edit it
offline :S

------
genericacct
Real hackers use sc or ethercalc anyway =]

------
gabriel34
So, is this a move against Microsoft?

~~~
robododo
Definitely. Though I often wonder how much Google's apps strategy is a direct-
compete with office for now?

I have a sneaking suspicion it's similar to Microsoft's Bing strategy. It
feels like Bing was created to annoy Google and keep them focused on search.
Microsoft could afford to throw a few billion at something to keep Google out
of it's bread-and-butter. It feels like Google's doing the same with apps.

Of course, given enough time to gain feature parity, both GApps and Bing could
be true competitors.

------
jonthn
Why would anyone use Excel now?

~~~
cobrausn
Maybe because not everyone wants their spreadsheet with sensitive data on
Google's servers. Also, I seriously doubt this thing is up to feature parity
with Excel.

~~~
g8oz
As far as desktop clients go, what does Excel have that Gnumeric or
LibreOffice Calc don't? Not including inertia.

