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#spreadsheet

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Total sidenote, just for #auspol nerds, here's the #spreadsheet fun I've had …

I nerdswiped myself because of my old faithful tactic being unavailable — I'll reveal it even if not valuable to most people — I used to take the Family First HTV and say thank you, because they were very useful — and then turn their HTV upside down. A handy alignment of 180° interests, in the 2010s for me. But they don't run everywhere anymore.

But once you go past the 2PP candidates, it doesn't matter of course

I need to set up a private spreadsheet that is viewable and editable by an elderly relation (who uses spreadsheets all the time) and a couple of younger family members, one of whom lives interstate.

The obvious answer is Google Sheets. Is there an alternative that is usable for these people?
#spreadsheet #spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are like dynamically-typed programming languages - they are low-friction, but not robust. Relational databases are kinda opposite. Tools like @grist keep the robustness while reducing the friction.

I've been trying out Grist for a few days and I like it a lot - both the concept and the execution.

Just ran into a brutal #UI / #UX problem in LibreOffice Calc, on a Debian bookworm system, fully up to date.

1. Decide to print spreadsheet
2. Open print dialog
3. Preview is in the left pane, options in the right.
4. Scroll down in the options pane to find an option near the bottom.
5. Change setting, or not.
6. Scroll back up to the top of the options pane, using the pointing device vertical scroll wheel.
7. If the "number of copies" scrollbox happens to pass under the mouse pointer, it will rapidly increase the number of copies. It's not particularly obvious this is happening; it's easy to miss the value is changing.
8. Move the mouse pointer slightly up and scrolling the options pane continues.
9. Click "print".

Voila! 23 copies of what you wanted to print a single copy of.

I actually ran into this while trying to debug a totally different UI / UX bug 😱

For the last week I've been trying out self-hosted NextCloud Office (i.e. Collabora Online Dev) as a Google Sheets replacement. I'm sad to report it is a massive downgrade in usability. The UI is slow, documents routinely fail to open on the first try, newer versions are overwritten by older ones and fail to restore from document history, sessions expire and I have to reload the tab.

I'll keep at it, but this part of degoogling is painful.

Episode 2 of #spreadsheet makeover, in which Anais is devious and there is a turtle. See the full emotional arc of getting from a problem statement, some bits and pieces of Excel, to a full solution.
We've discovered that making a great open source spreadsheet isn't enough, we also need to figure out how to show people how to use it. We've done all the formal support site and READMEs and tutorials and forums, and now we're trying fancy grid-themed 'fits and calming music. We want your feedback!

This kind of reminds me of a time I was asked to create what was essentially a bare bones controlled drug register in a spreadsheet for a small study. It worked but only because there were different sets of eyes monitoring it and I do not recommend it as a long term solution.

theregister.com/2025/03/10/nz_

The Register · $16 billion health department managed its finances with a single Excel spreadsheet. It hasn’t gone wellBy Simon Sharwood