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45 Comments
- Aanidaani, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I think he means that he tried out Google Spreadsheets the day it came out and disliked it. I personally think it's gone a long way toward being a functional and useful product, but until it gets better integration and more features it won't be as useful as Excel or OpenOffice.
- tapo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Actually, it is running off of your computer. The webpage is downloaded and cached, and the code behind it (Javascript) is running on your machine. When it makes a request to the server, it does so silently and in the backround (XMLHttpRequest).
This is why Ajax is such a cool technology, it allows for the development of 'thin clients' that will run under any web browser with no additional software. With 'Fat Clients' such as a .exe, it'll only run under a specific system. In your case, Windows. Or maybe only on a Mac or Linux, or only under version 6 of the Java Virtual Machine. - neutronnut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I have been using it briefly, but until Google makes something similar to macros and vba integration Excel wins hands down. Considering what people will create with as much functionality that macros/vba integration offer, it may be smart for them not to.
Macros rule for most of the repetitive tasks excel is used for. - MySchizoBuddy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11huh?
the spreadsheet doesn't have the chart feature yet. how did u try it out - mikevickrocks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7A billion people don't use Google SpreadSheets, or GMail, or any other Google service, with an exception maybe for Google search.
- babbling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'm not using Google Spreadsheets until it has support for OpenDocument.
- emiles, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Perhaps google isn't trying to beat excel, but instead to create an alternative to excel for light spreadsheet tasks for which sharing and online accessibility are more important than a huge feature set or integration with other programs.
- MasterXen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Charting is a relatively simple feature that has been around for ages. Knowing what Google usually makes, they will go the plain JavaScript route.
Take a look at http://www.liquidx.net/canvasgraphjs/ for a really neat implementation of the idea. - maguilar2k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Num Sum.com already supports charts.
- spacedyevest, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4i still hate how you can't click and drag a stupid cell. When that feature happens I will be satisfied!
- DigeratiPrime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3irows can do charts already as well
http://www.irows.com/ - samd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It autosaves I think, like Gmail messages do.
- crilen007, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4What about Google Maps? Ton's of sites and people use it all the time and its images!
Surely they will increase the Spreadsheet performance, after all, it is only beta =P - DigeratiPrime, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3well cut/copy/paste meet that 'need' for me. What I want is the ability to select multiple cells via the control key, it's too much work to apply formatting over and over.
- Josephtech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Anyone with half a brain knows that charts are one of the most important features in a spread sheet. Google knows this to. Google is using the throw spaghetti on a wall and see what sticks strategy. If spreadsheets sticks the functionally will be build it with as good a quality as gmail or picassa. Its only a matter of time.
- benjihad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2the charts feature is not important. you can download a cvs version if you want to print a chart.
i just had a conversation today with my girlfriend. she is a tipped worker and wants to use a spreadsheet to keep track of her tips to find out exactly what her average income would be. she's considering buying a car and wants to know what type of monthly payment she can afford.
"who doesn't have excel?" she asked. I don't. I figured that i would just download OOO and install that, but then i remembered google spreadsheets (actually my RSS of digg on my Google homepage pointed me to it). it's great. it does exactly what i want, the formulas are easy and i even saved a local copy just in case of a "major fiber break". why install a program that you don't need to install? you don't need to install a spreadsheet program anymore for normal use, at least i don't. - FKnight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I can't wait til everyone is only using web based applications and there's a major fiber break. Then everyone can realize just how utterly stupid the idea of "web based applications and data storage" is.
- maguilar2k, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3BTW I was creating a spreadsheet using Google Spreadsheets and after several minutes, the server failed and my work was gone..... no in-progress backups.... zero... I was unable to execute any action... looks like almost all the processing ocurr in the server (that makes more weird the lack of online backups).
- Roger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Can G. Spread. do an auto series or whatever its called? I'd like to type 1, 2, 3 in three rows and have it generated 1..100 in 100 rows, like in Excel.
- Subcranium, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Hmm. Let me try again. Is the latest version any better than the first?
- Cambo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i cant wait for the rest of the suite to come out, google word.... google access....... google powerpoint..... then i will commence switching my customers over.
- fl00d, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I personally believe this is awesome, but until Google makes the spreadsheets secure, I can't imagine anybody taking it seriously. Everybody keeps clamoring for this feature and that feature, and generally being dicks about it, but really, SECURE management of spreadsheets is paramount to taking this project to the next level. Fellow DIGGers, quit whining about your petty little features and start appreciating this gem for what it really is. And what it is, is nothing short of amazing.
Thank you, Google, for continually making my life better. - larry9700, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Awesome link, I hadn't seen that one before!
- alphageek101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nope.
- asmodeus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Web software that replaces functionality that is so much better suited to a desktop application sucks. I do use web based email, but only because it'd be overkill for my uses to set up an IMAP server. But I don't pretend that it's better in any way than running some decent mail software on my desktop.
At my previous job, I worked on some web software that really should have been a proper application. I'd have never touched it as a user, even if I'd desperately needed the functions it provided. I was always surprised when people bought licenses/accounts for it. - b7j0c, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1falcon1 - why do people keep saying "they aren't trying ot make excel"??? if you aren't gunning for the leader in a market, whats the point? and how big is this audience of users who needs to access spreadsheets anywhere, yet does not carry a laptop and does not have any security concerns? and is this tiny market of tinkerers even worth pursuing for a company as big as google?
i am all for "connected" apps, but in this case the way to do it is to make a traditional spreadhseet network-aware and use open standard for document exchange. the web stack just isn't appropiate for this type of application. - dasch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Please let it be SVG!
- neutronnut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@emiles: I completely agree that google is not trying to take on excel and the idea of a simple online spreadsheet is actually quite nice to collaborate on. But, the only benefit I would gain from it over the other programs is that you can collaborate and share and i don't think a new program needs to be designed solely for that purpose. Email, instant messaging, etc are just as quick and effective.
- benc11, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is cool technology that is here to stay and grow. If I was a boxed software provider/maker I would be worried.
- joshross4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just because you can do a spreadsheet app in HTML does not mean that you should. if google wanted to host an app (open office) and present it through the web IMHO they should work on their own application transport something like ICA (citrix) application sharing.
- glafira, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It may not have the advance features of Excel but its good for begginer tasks.
- falcon1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, it IS online. Its great for jumping on a computer (any computer, with internet access), making a spreadsheet, and being able to access that from anywhere that has a web browser and internet access. They arent trying to make Excel Online. For what it is, they did a very good job.
- robbiedo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I really like what Google has to offer. The spreadsheet is cool to keep various lists and stuff online, and i assume, completel searchable. However, I am incresingly nervous with giving Google, or an other online entity such a tresure trove of my personal information.
The recent AT&T coversion of personal information to business records further gives me casue for concern.
What's to prevent government, and private parties from going on fishing expeditions with all this personal data. How about some private attorney whose has a connection at Google and subverts an employee to get access. Rules are always in place to protect private info, but individuals with access have a habit of making their own rules.
I love the convenience of the growing Google suite of tools. They are amazingly useful in ways that i had not even imagined, but at what cost?
ld loeI wou - alphageek101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I just thought of an easy workaround to do this in Google Spreadsheets: Set cell A1 to "1", set cell A2 to "=A1+1", copy cell A2 and paste over cells A3 to A100. Done.
- sebastianavina, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0what we really need is an open API for spreadsheets, maybe an API full compliant with SQL, so we can build up our own apps, and our own graphs, based on google software.
- element14, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0> what we really need is an open API for spreadsheets, maybe an API full compliant with SQL, so we can build
> up our own apps, and our own graphs, based on google software.
EditGrid has a fairly complete API
http://www.editgrid.com (main site)
http://labs.editgrid.com (documentation site and sandbox) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2google run millions of searches pretty damn fast in real-time. finding millions of results in fractions of a second, for thousands of people. and i doubt seriously that you'll ever get a billion users on google spreadsheets at once. at the moment, in its beta stage, i doubt that it gets out of the tens of thousands much. i could be wrong, that's just completely speculative, but i dint think its too far off.
- b7j0c, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1google spreadsheets is lame. if it was not a webapp, and in particular, not a google web app, this entire discussion would not even be taking place. it doesn't do anything a serious user would want. who wants to use this? i keep hearing responses about "light" users who want to share spreadsheets. okay, why is excel unable to edit basic spreadhseets as well as advanced ones? or openoffice? or gnumeric? as to sharing, people who want to do this in serious environments already have tools for this, they are called SERVERS.
google spreadsheets will never amount to being much more than a toy because the web stack was never designed to provide advanced user applications with large data sets. go ahead and thuimb me down, but deep down you know this tool is a joke and if it was part of "office.live.msn.com" you would be joining me in saying this. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Google...the world`s biggest overvalued Beta Test.
- element14, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0whoops
- robbiedo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I really like what Google has to offer. The spreadsheet is cool to keep various lists and stuff online, and I assume, completely searchable. However, I am increasingly nervous with giving Google, or an other online entity such a treasure trove of my personal information.
The recent AT&T coversion of personal information to business records further gives me cause for concern.
What's to prevent government, and private parties from going on a vendetta fishing expeditions with all this personal data. How about some private attorney whose has a connection at Google and subverts an employee to get access. Rules are always in place to protect private info, but individuals with access have a habit of making their own rules. It's not always the Government.
I love the convenience of the growing Google suite of tools. They are amazingly useful in ways that i had not even imagined, but at what cost?
ld loeI wou - oyourmom, on 10/12/2007, -10/+6The problem is its not a .exe file stored on your hard drive already loaded. If it is running off a Google server theres millions maybe billion using it at once so Google cant possibly keep it all fast as exel. Its a excelt idea but needs to be perfected. Im sure Google will get it down like they do everything. ;)
- Tricky, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1Why the ***** would you want a Google Spreadshiat?
- Subcranium, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5I meant Google Spreadsheets, not Google Charts. Sorry.
- Subcranium, on 10/12/2007, -26/+5I tried out Google Charts the day it arrived. It sucked. Slow and feature-incomplete. I was 0/3 on loading Excel Spreadsheets.
Has anyone bothered to check whether it's become more useful? It's nice to know charts are one the way, as I almost always have at least one chart per spreadsheet.
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