onekk wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 7:16 pm
I doubt that using a commercial software in an opensource project will be a clever move.
Maybe using something from LibreOffice, but the underlying question is IMHO:
It is useful to have a full fledged spreadsheet in FreeCAD?
I can clearly see where you are coming from and, in a sense, I agree. Though, I think the FreeCAD spreadsheet cannot be qualified as a Full Fledged spreadsheet. "Basic" would appear to be a better qualifier. But that's really a question of opinion.
Just to clarify, my basic motivation for such an endeavor is that the EXCEL IDE is quite sophisticated, quick and full of editing features that render an avid spreadsheet user to enjoy the editing much more than the spreadsheet in FreeCAD. Now, I'm not bashing on the FreeCAD spreadsheet. I think it is a great feature of FreeCAD, its just that it is not as elegant and convenient to utilize as EXCEL.
I regularly utilize both and in many occasions I wish I had all those EXCEL editing capabilities available in FreeCAD. One of them being that in EXCEL if you change one value, all other values are immediately calculated in such a short time that one do not even realize the delay. Where, in FreeCAD, in a moderately complex CAD, changing one value in the spreadsheet require sometime several minutes before FreeCAD terminate the recalculation. If the spreadsheet were to happen in EXCEL, calculations would be done in a snap and then only once would FreeCAD take a long shot to update the CAD.
So, IMO I think it would be great if I could keep my EXCEL spreadsheet on screen#2 and my FreeCAD window on screen#1. This way I could edit my CAD and do modifications in real-time and when done, order an update to FreeCAD. I think it would be a cool feature.
Now, of course, EXCEL here would not be required to compute complex accounting or database queries. just a plain spreadsheet would already be a great feature.
I'm not too familiar with LibreOffice but it sure is a good idea to take a look at that possibility. I'll have to investigate how the programming environment works on LibreOffice, but, sure, its an avenue to take a look at.
Thanks for your comments
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