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Edward,<br>
<br>
Thanks for doing the testing. Here are some answers to some of the
questions you asked or things you found undocumented.<br>
<br>
The database functions, like all of the functions, are pretty much the
same as the functions by the same name in Excel and many other
spreadsheets (many going back to Lotus 1-2-3 and even sometimes
VisiCalc). They are defined in the Open Document Format specification.
The same is true of all of the financial functions. (There used to be
an Open Formula specification, which I think got moved into Open
Document Format. I coded the functions looking to the Open Formula
specification.) The built-in SocialCalc doc does not provide more than
the simple explanation for all functions to save space and since they
are well documented with other spreadsheets. Most of the SocialCalc
documentation is about what is special to SocialCalc. Also, the code
itself documents what it does, including, with the financial functions,
a reference to the Wikipedia entry that helped in their specification.
I assumed that others can read that to produce appropriate written
documentation. (I think there is a reported issue that SocialCalc's IF
function only
takes the 3 argument form, not the 2 argument form. It also evaluated
all arguments unlike many other IF functions.)<br>
<br>
The toolbar buttons, including the two types of move and swap colors,
as well as the sheet settings, names, and more are explained in a video
I created. The 54 minute Flash video, created with Camtasia, goes over
many of the features of the main SocialCalc engine that the Sugar
version of SocialCalc is built upon. (For example, that version does
not have the Sugar-specific graphing tab.) You can view the video at:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.peapodcast.com/sgi/socialtext/sctraining1/">http://www.peapodcast.com/sgi/socialtext/sctraining1/</a><br>
<br>
Note that the value format specification language, used to define
numeric formatting, is similar to that used in most spreadsheets,
including Excel. You can learn much of it by looking at the samples
already built into the product (set a format and the choose Custom to
see the definition). This can be used when customizing the product for
other locales to, for example, have different currency symbols and
placement. Custom formats are demonstrated in the video.<br>
<br>
Thanks again for taking time to work with SocialCalc so we can help
provide this functionality around the world through this platform.<br>
<br>
-DanB<br>
<br>
Edward Cherlin wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:e574f6eb0909051644v24e2f66i3b06596d0e500c4e@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I ran through all of the basic functions of SocialCalc, including
every icon on every tab. I have tested some but not all of the 109
functions provided, with good results so far. Although there are
functions I could wish for, the only real deficiency I have found is
in the documentation.
I have created a page for elements of Sugar that children are not
likely to discover on their own,
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/The_undiscoverable">http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/The_undiscoverable</a>. I recommend it to
developers who want to think about whether more of Sugar can be made
discoverable, or whether we need to write lesson plans for the
features that cannot be made obvious to the novice. I will put in a
section for SocialCalc. These are not bugs in the sense of incorrect
behavior or missing explanations, so I omit them here.
Here is a summary of the other issues I have encountered.
o The database functions are severely underdocumented. What database?
What are databaserange, fieldname, criteriarange?
o Where does Paste Formats get its formats from?
o What does Swap Colors do?
o The financial and statistical function definitions in the Help might
be clear to one who uses other spreadsheets a lot, but certainly are
not to a beginner.
o More explanation is needed on angles in degrees and radians.
o I understand Move From and Move Paste, but not Move Insert.
o I see how to set names, but not what to use them for or how.
o I don't see the Sheet setting control on the Format tab that the
Help refers to.
o I found the OK and Sort... buttons on the Sort tab confusing. It has
since become clear to me. Perhaps OK should be renamed Set Range.
Not bad for a beta.
On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Manusheel Gupta<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:manu@laptop.org"><manu@laptop.org></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear community members,
We are preparing for the next release of SocialCalc on Sugar. Localization
infrastructure, canonicalization of the save format and collaboration will
be the key features available in the next release. We are also looking
forward to develop interoperability between SocialCalc format and a number
of other spreadsheet formats like .wk3/.wk4/csv/excel/open office
spreadsheet. We have recently received a number of requests on developing
interoperability between SocialCalc and .wk3/.wk4 format, which has been a
challenging problem to work on. Hope to get this feature ready before the
next release.
Lately, I have been testing SocialCalc on the Sugar Live CD, and have run
into issues. I can't seem to get SocialCalc to start. I fired up the Sugar
LiveCD, and opened up the USB icon in my journal. I can see the file
SocialCalc.xo on my USB stick. When I click on it, I get a start button,
but then nothing happens. Below is a gears image, which starts something
that looks like a developer interface. Not sure, where I have been going
wrong. Any help on this issue is highly appreciated.
Please visit the SocialCalc on Sugar page at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://seeta.in/j/products-and-services/socialcalc-on-sugar.html">http://seeta.in/j/products-and-services/socialcalc-on-sugar.html</a>. The
activity is available for download both from the SEETA website
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://seeta.in">http://seeta.in</a>) and from activities.sugarlabs.org. If you have any
questions, or would like to add suggestions/comments/feature requests,
please do so here.
Thank you for your continued support.
Regards,
Manu
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
</pre>
</blockquote>
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