[HN Gopher] SCIM: Ncurses based, Vim-like spreadsheet
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       SCIM: Ncurses based, Vim-like spreadsheet
        
       Author : emersonrsantos
       Score  : 143 points
       Date   : 2024-07-04 18:04 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | opengears wrote:
       | This has been posted several times on HN, but besides being
       | awesome, this project should be better funded. Please read the
       | README on Github and sponsor it on patreon.
        
       | lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote:
       | I think it looks gorgeous, but I'm skeptical that it's actually
       | more efficient than just using excel.
        
         | opengears wrote:
         | show me how you start excel in your terminal
        
           | lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote:
           | That's.... my point. I'm skeptical that you'd be more
           | efficient by doing spreadsheet operations on your terminal vs
           | just using excel on your non-terminal.
        
           | smaudet wrote:
           | For me spreadsheets are most useful when shared. My biggest
           | objection - can I share with e.g. google sheets or office
           | 365?
           | 
           | I think it's neat for terminal usage, though.
           | 
           | Other problem: I _can_ vim but I prefer the emacs
           | keybindings.
        
             | SoftTalker wrote:
             | I suppose you could share using tmux or screen.
        
               | smaudet wrote:
               | And my next question would be can this software handle
               | concurrent writes?
               | 
               | If it could, that'd be an excellent solution.
        
             | constantcrying wrote:
             | You can share with git. But obviously this is no real
             | replacement for cloud based multi user spread sheet
             | software.
             | 
             | To be honest I also think that if you are making heavy use
             | of cloud based spread sheet software you have a 100% chance
             | of being a drain on your organization and society as a
             | whole, so I can't really count those missing features as a
             | big downside.
        
               | smaudet wrote:
               | > To be honest I also think that if you are making heavy
               | use of cloud based spread sheet software you have a 100%
               | chance of being a drain on your organization and society
               | as a whole
               | 
               | How about for just personal (family/friends) usage?
               | 
               | I would tend to agree spreadsheets are a crutch in larger
               | orgs, however they're best deployed as a prototype tool
               | IMO.
               | 
               | There's plenty of room for > 1 and < 5 (write-access)
               | person operations where cloud based xlsx sharing just
               | makes far more sense than some expensive/excessive
               | enterprise tools.
        
             | p_l wrote:
             | It appears to support XLSX, so for certain level of sharing
             | it should work.
        
           | fragmede wrote:
           | '                   open /Applications/Microsoft Excel.app/
        
             | lsllc wrote:
             | Hmmm:                   The files /Applications/Microsoft
             | and /Users/lsllc/Excel.app do not exist.
             | 
             | Missing a backslash! [0] ... how quaintly Microsoft!
             | 
             | /s
             | 
             | [0] To escape the space, or you could quote the entire
             | argument to `open`
        
         | constantcrying wrote:
         | >but I'm skeptical that it's actually more efficient than just
         | using excel.
         | 
         | It is more keyboard driven than Excel and felt a bit more
         | "productive", far less focus on designing the spreadsheet.
         | 
         | You use Excel because you have to, as part of your job. But I
         | used this for some smaller things and it worked reasonably
         | well.
        
           | SoftTalker wrote:
           | Lotus 1-2-3 was originally a screen-based, keyboard driven
           | application.
        
         | FerretFred wrote:
         | I used it on my Raspberry Pi Zero "TravelPi" project which was
         | TUI-based. No way could I get Excel on there :)
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | Does it have more features than dBase IV, Quattro Pro?
        
       | bbor wrote:
       | This catches my eye every time, but for day-to-day work I always
       | fall back to Google sheets. In light of that, this browser
       | extension I found recently has been an absolute game changer:
       | https://github.com/philc/sheetkeys
       | 
       | Because really, do you want all of vim in sheets, or just
       | navigation (`i/h/j/k/gg/G/^u/^d`) and selection (`v/V`)? It has
       | some other basic stuff, like `dd` and `o/O`, but otherwise
       | conflicts with browser and Google functionality keep me away.
        
         | jerpint wrote:
         | Awesome, thanks for sharing
        
       | asdefghyk wrote:
       | This article made me recall a text based GUI? I used in
       | commercial programming tool named "Vermont Views" previously
       | named "Windows for Data" This was around about 1990 or earlier? .
       | It was a tool that allowed relatively easy development of text
       | based user interfaces Old Ad for it
       | https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1992-01/page/n25/m...
       | Google the words >> +"Windows for Data" Vermont Views << for lots
       | other links ....
        
       | raingrove wrote:
       | Pretty cool! It's kinda amusing that we've gone from TUI
       | (VisiCalc/Lotus 1-2-3) to GUI (Excel), and back to TUI though.
        
         | 5- wrote:
         | cursor-addressing uis likely have a higher barrier to entry
         | (both for developers and users), so they are not suffering from
         | the regression to the mean that has made modern guis absolutely
         | unusable.
         | 
         | that, and there aren't any "ui/ux designers" specialising in
         | cursor-addressing uis.
        
           | galdosdi wrote:
           | What do you mean precisely by "character addressing UI"? I
           | can infer approximately what you mean, but I had never heard
           | that phrase before and could not Google it, so was wondering
           | how precisely you define that as presumably slightly distinct
           | from other more common terms for text mode applications.
        
             | 5- wrote:
             | thanks! i meant 'cursor-addressing', to avoid the ambiguous
             | term 'tui', which usually (and per
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface)
             | means cursor-addressing, but nominally also includes actual
             | text-based user interfaces, as seen in e.g. the traditional
             | unix utilities.
        
       | eterps wrote:
       | I really wanted to use this tool because I love Vim, but it just
       | feels 'off' to me. I'm not sure why, though.
       | 
       | In a spreadsheet, I'm used to being able to move around with
       | arrow keys and start typing immediately. Using SCIM, it feels
       | like I'm constantly hitting a wall.
       | 
       | Despite that, I think the idea of a spreadsheet as a TUI is
       | really great.
        
         | atlintots wrote:
         | What could be a more Vim-like experience than feeling like
         | you're constantly hitting a wall when first learning? :)
        
           | eterps wrote:
           | True, but in my case I think it isn't enough of a Vim-like
           | experience. In that case I would have expected modes I could
           | stay in for longer than a single cell entry.
           | 
           | It would be fine if I'm in insert/edit mode and I can move
           | around entering values in several cells and then press escape
           | to exit that mode.
           | 
           | The reason I think TUIs are attractive to use is because
           | they're more efficient to use. But this one doesn't feel more
           | efficient to use than its GUI counterparts.
        
           | contingencies wrote:
           | Maybe Emacs where you have to learn LISP and wear out your
           | bracket keys?
        
         | croemer wrote:
         | My expectation would be that you have to enter insert mode
         | first before you can type, no?
        
         | trollbridge wrote:
         | Whilst this is a neat project, it would seem the best way to
         | get a Vim-like spreadsheet would be to build something actually
         | in Vim.
        
       | sylware wrote:
       | Quite cool.
       | 
       | Plain and simple C, etc. I would have liked a one compilation
       | unit with proper preprocessor namespaces, that to be picky.
        
       | conception wrote:
       | Btw SCIM is the name of the standard for cross-domain identity
       | management. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_for_Cross-
       | domain_Iden...
       | 
       | Might affect searchability.
        
       | khimaros wrote:
       | tried this out a while back and ultimately settled on visidata
       | instead https://github.com/saulpw/visidata
        
         | ericpruitt wrote:
         | Could you explain what made you prefer visidata over SCIM?
        
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       (page generated 2024-07-04 23:00 UTC)