
Show HN: CubeWeaver, a collaborative multidimensional web-based spreadsheet - egeria_planning
https://cubeweaver.com/
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qubex
For somebody who misses Lotus Improv, used Quantrix Modeller, and has
evaluated XCubes, this feels about right. Unfortunately web-based solution
(particularly those that cannot be self-hosted) are basically _verboten_ to
those who (such as myself) manage the kind of work that probably require this
kind of instrument.

I honestly wish somebody would build something like this in the spirit of
Lotus Improv for modern platforms, with modern creature comforts, as a native
application.

Well done though, it really looks enticing.

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denster
We use "nested spreadsheets" that can live in any cell, and combined with
aggregate functions like GROUP_BY() we're able to get this behavior.

Would be genuinely curious -- would our approach [1] help w/what you're
working on?

[1] Here's an example of how we think about multiple dimensions in
spreadsheets (videos + text): [https://mintdata.com/docs/learn/core-
mechanics/work-with-dat...](https://mintdata.com/docs/learn/core-
mechanics/work-with-data/work-with-frames/group-by-columns/)

~~~
qubex
That’s very interesting, but to be perfectly honest it’s almost the exact
opposite of how I’d tend to think of things whilst building or manipulating a
model. I don’t want to offend anyone, but it feels _baroque_ , like something
bolted-on, and it kind of breaks the whole “spreadsheet extruded into
arbitrary dimensions” (cube) metaphor.

(Such as how in the accursed Excel, at least up to the last version I was
blighted with having to use, one couldn’t take a cell of a Pivot table as the
input to another formula elsewhere.)

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warpech
I can see it was previously submitted as Egeria, can you share some info how
it has evolved into the new product?

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egeria_planning
Egeria was just a technology demonstrator. CubeWeaver is a cloud application
which can scale over multiple servers, supports user authentication, model
sharing and redundant data storage. I also added a lot of features that the
pilot users were missing (like data import, csv import, aggregation, various
formatting options, etc...).

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warpech
Congratulations on your launch. This looks like a huge endeavour. Happy to see
Handsontable used in your product!

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kevincox
It took me 5 tries to pass your register captcha. Maybe you should try
something more human friendly.

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m1sta_
I like it, but I want to be able to use it with my team before committing and
that requires on premise.

~~~
egeria_planning
I would suggest to test the cloud version with some dummy data first, so that
you know that the application is ok for you. On premise version is also
available, but not for free. You will also need either some Linux know how or
my support to install, maintain and keep your installation updated.

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quickthrower2
Congrats. Nice to see some innovation in the spreadsheet space. Often you need
3D (or more) data and excel sucks as you need to create a pivot table every
time. R is good but that's coding, not always in the mood for that.

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carapace
Is it anything like Ted Nelson's ZigZag?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigZag_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigZag_\(software\))

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egeria_planning
ZigZag seems like something very abstract and mathematical. CubeWeaver is just
a spreadsheet with drop-down filters if you like.

~~~
carapace
Cheers!

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chrisweekly
This looks tremendously useful; it's easy to imagine its adoption taking off
given the obvious benefits over traditional spreadsheets. Thanks for sharing!
And good luck! :)

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xiaodai
Does anyone know if it uses web assembly?

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qubex
I don’t know if it does or not, but I’m curious to know why this interests
you, in the sense that if it works it doesn’t really matter to (potential)
end-users such as ourselves how it is implemented. I’m not denouncing the
question as illegitimate, I’m just... genuinely curious.

~~~
Widdershin
Not the person you’re asking but it’s interesting to see how the sausage gets
made.

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egeria_planning
The sausage is 100% free from gluten and web assembly.

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silw001
cloudy tm1 is quite affordable now, what is the winning point?

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michaelanckaert
Nice work! Can you tell us a bit about your tech stack?

~~~
egeria_planning
Thank you. It is an Angular 9 SPA frontend with a .NET Core backend and an SQL
database (MySQL or SQLITE) as a data store. I use several open source
libraries. Handsontable is used to display the grid for example. A complete
list is available in the help->about dialog.

~~~
ar-jan
I'm curious, do you translate the multiple dimensions to a fully normalized
relational structure, or do you also use complex structures like JSON inside
the backend database?

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egeria_planning
The masterdata is stored as JSON to avoid creating/dropping columns and tables
as list/columns are added and removed. But an option to have a fully
normalized relational structure in an on-premise installation is on my feature
list. It could be useful for enterprise clients who could use the data
directly for reports and other applications.

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orastor
Did they really have to choose a logo that's so similar to competitors?
[https://i.imgur.com/JGwS1V1.png](https://i.imgur.com/JGwS1V1.png)

~~~
egeria_planning
I don't think AirTable is a competitor in any way. As far as it is something
like Sharepoint. I think the logo was created before AirTable was there at
all.

