I want to provide lookup capability in bliss to avoid having the user massively drag and drop related entities. The excel vlookup function is what I’m thinking – i know though that normal business users have real problems with that facility and it’s fundamental to make best use of Excel (imo).

I thought maybe this kind of command

@Requirements(Ref=”R1″).Name

@[..................] ( [.......]=”[......]” ) . [....................]  <- using the predicate editor…   After typing @ drop down list of documents is shown, then the bracket shows drop down list of columns) etc.

Meaning: display the value from the Name column in another Document called “Requirements” where it’s Ref column is “R1″. (“R1″ could be a column in the current document instead – per normal vlookup use).

Drag and drop will still be available as the “normal” way to do things, the drag and drop way would show this “formula” to the user, teaching the user what to write.

Bliss being a repository system rather than a cell based system, would then just add a new content item. So rather than excel being clever performing batch bulk lookups (that can get slow with the sheets I typically work with), Bliss would create the equivalent of a symbolic link in the unix filesystem, meaning that the same item can exist in more than one place and work just as quickly.

My good friend JimG provided the following food for thought:

“The formula would be shown in status bar (when cell chosen) and in the cell itself (say if user pressed option)”

Just wondered if a more formal “review what I just did” type option might be useful in terms of learning? (Probably it would just show you the “Link Inspector” – just wondering if it might help ease them into becoming a ‘power user’ if they had a means of learing the formula behind what they just did in a way that *seemed* clearly divorced from the work they’re actually doing. i.e. they never *feel* like they have to worry about breaking something).

@Requirements would give me an easy way to peek at Requirements Documents

@Requirements(Ref=1).Name would give me an easy way to see the Name column in context

  It’s easy to dismiss – it’s just a quick peek. Once I’m done I want it to go away easily and with no risk to what I’m doing BUT if I need to look more closely that’s not too hard either

1. “the drag and drop way would show this “formula” to the user, teaching the user what to write”

- You should give them an easy way to see this information after they’ve finished the drag and drop. The last thing you want an app to do is interupt what you want to do with something *it thinks* you might want to do. There could be an option to
a) see the formuals as you drag (might suit some peoples way of learning)
b) just review the formula afterwards (in a way that is really easy to find but not too difficult to ignore either ;-) )
c) both

 

OK, so lookups sorted quite easily, wonder how many other spreadsheet style functions I’ll find the need for (above count/sum etc.).