Re: Spreadsheet FR

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

On Apr 2, 2010, at 10:16 AM, Russell Adams wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 02, 2010 at 09:49:46AM +0200, Carsten Dominik wrote:
>>
>>> Would it be feasible to "narrow" a table by criteria on a specific
>>> field in between separators? Ie: only display those cells in field A
>>> if they are > 2, or if field B matches "Pick Me!".
>>
>> This one might be possible - but dangerous for losing data.
>
> Ideally we're just narrowing away lines, collapsing a table like org
> collapses headlines.
>
> Why would that be more likely to cause data loss?

Because there would be ellipsis in unfamiliar places and the danger to  
accidentally modify invisible text would be higer.

>
>>> A nice feature would be updating the totals at the bottom with only
>>> the visible data.
>>
>> I don't think Excel works like this, does it?
>
> Absolutely. Excel 2003 and up support "lists" or in 2007 "tables",
> where you can do filter and summary work. I use it all the time for
> customer planning because its the closest thing to grep/awk for  
> Windows.

OK, I did not know this.

>
> I think the real trick here is making the formulas ignore narrowed  
> content.
>
> If you'd like I can send you a sample.

Please do - but that does not mean that I am going to implement this.   
This would be tricky.

- Carsten