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Taking Another Look At EditGrid On-line Spreadsheet

Yesterday I received a message at Epiac's Place from David Lee, Chairman of Team and Concepts Limited , requesting another review of their software EditGrid On-Line Spreadsheet which had been upgraded that same day. I accepted.

If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you will probably remember than on April 8th., I published a post, dubbed One More Web-Based SpreadSheet . Summarizing my review, I said:

"My main concern is the difficulty in creating formulas. Spreadsheets are mainly used to crunch numbers instead of just structuring information in tables. There are a zillion other utilities that can do that just as well or better than EditGrid. Business applications heavily depend on spreadsheets to ease the task of number manipulation. If EditGrid does not provide this feature in an attractive and easy to use fashion, the business community will pass by without even waving. In my case, I would not be interested. There are other better alternatives. In a nutshell: If you want to share information in a grid with others around the world in real time, this is an excellent choice. If you want to use this software to crunch numbers, move on. The ball is in your court."

EditGrid has been upgraded to Public Beta 2 (rev 1431). It's the second release targeted for trial use by public users. The focus of this release is on the user experience on the grid as well as features on the user workspace.

I was using Opera 9.0 Beta to start the review. Tough luck! EditGrid will not support other browsers besides MS Internet Explorer 6+ and Mozilla Firefox 1.0+. The message form TandC read: "Sorry: the browser you are now using is not fully supported in this beta version. You may have problem working with a spreadsheet. Currently only Firefox 1.0+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+ are supported. Safari 1.3 is our next target." I switched to Firefox v.1.5.0.2, which is the browser I'm using now.

The next upgrade of EditGrid--Public Beta3 is expected to be released on April 28, 2006. Some of the next improvements will be:

1. Better "My Workplace"
2. Comprehensive sheet properties settings
3. Multiple cell paste
4. Select row/column, Copy & Paste rows/column

EditGrid's Devs have made great efforts listening to its end users. They have included the following keyboard navigation features:


1. Cursor Mode

--Move cursor to the beginning of spreadsheet's grid (A1). Comment: No keyboard hotkeys have been selected to move cursor to end of spreadsheet's grid.
--Move cursor Down, Up, Right and Left
--Move cursor to select regions
--Scroll Page Up and Page Down
--Clear cell content
--Cut, Copy & Paste regions
--Toggle to Bold, Italic and Underline text


2. Edit Mode

--Start formula (=). I liked this improvement. Previously I spent several minutes trying to find out how to create a formula.
--Cut, Copy and Paste to Clipboard.

I think these improvements are fine for those users who prefer using their keyboards instead of the mouse to increase productivity.

Another improvement is 21 (not 135 as erroneously posted in the web site) mathematical functions: SUM(), STDEV (), COUNTIF (), VLOOKUP(), AND, SQRT, ROUND, etc. The link for further information regarding the formula functions was not working--page would not download.

In order to taste the pudding, I decided to design a simple January 2006 Payroll Roaster with very simple calculations. After several trials and errors, I was finally able to complete it. I have several comments.

a. When I tried to multiply a cell by a certain factor (B14 * .05), I got this: #NAME?. I don't know what this means and couldn't find out, since there is no HELP section.

b. Software doesn't have a relative copy feature. For example, if you want to copy a formula within a certain range, you have to do it one by one, instead of making a relative region copy. In my opinion, this is a very negative drawback in corporate use. In a roaster with one hundred employees, having to copy each formula one at a time will take forever. This requires immediate attention.

c. Software does not include a SORT feature. In a corporate environment, you are constantly organizing alpha/numerical information. From AZ to ZA or from Smaller to Greater or vice versa. For example, the Human Resources Department needs to organize names of employees alphabetically in order to find them faster. This is a feature that must be added in future upgrades.

d. The software will not center title with a range of columns. This is useful when using titles or names of reports and/or documents.

e. In Accounting the double underline is heavily used to indicate that it's the total bottom line. I suggest you add this option in the future. The "bean counters" will appreciate it.


RECAPITULATION:

This second review has shown that EditGrid has been greatly improved. Most of the functions are intuitive. The GUI (user interface) is simple and easy to use; crisp, clean and relatively uncluttered. All icons included in the spreadsheet are necessary and extremely useful. These are the main categories:


1. Font Management:
--Types (Arial, Times New Roman, Courier, Georgia, Verdana and Geneva)
--Size (Expressed in points)
--Bold, Italics and Underline options for text

2. Text Alignment:
--Left, Center and Right

3. Color:
--Background and text color

4. Mathematical Features:
--Number format (I had problems getting the decimals to display correctly as percentages.)
--Sum Selected Cells (I liked this feature; just like Excel)
--Insert Formulas (Excellent addition; just like Excel)

5. Cell Management:
--Insert/Delete Columns and Insert and Delete Rows (Intuitive to use)

6. Commonly-Used Formulas:
Excellent work here. Software includes 21 commonly-used formulas. It contains the name of the formula and a brief explanation of each one; a synopsis and example of usage. Simple and easy to use.

7. Other:
You have the option to post your spreadsheets to your del.icio.us files to share it with your friends and colleagues. This highlights the core philosophy of EditGrid: Access, Collaboration and Sharing.

In my opinion, other Web browsers should be considered, such as Flock and Mozilla Suite, which are closely related to Mozilla Firefox. Remember that excluding browsers will limit your growth. Flock is a Web 2-centric, social browser which works very closely with del.icio.us.

In a nutshell; a great leap forward. Keep working on your formulas to make them work more intuitively; add more formulas and incorporate the relative copy of formulas within a range of cells. Remember that number crunching is the bread and butter of corporations.

I rest my case.

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