Comments on: Sparklines in Excel 2010 – why?

By: dcardno

dcardno — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:28:28 +0000

“Disagree entirely with Oliver on CF in 2007. The only thing better about it is unlimited conditions. The UI is a car crash, the icons are childish, the implementations are weak, and they have failed to extend it properly.”

‘Zactly. The good things in ’07 didn’t need the new encrypted interface.

By: Machiel Zwanenburg

Machiel Zwanenburg — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:03:55 +0000

Fabrice,

I’m so sorry to contact you this way, but.. trying to download your wonderful Sparklines xla (which I’ve used in the past), but.. unable to find it on the net (sourceforge gives no files, and can’t access your blog as it’s “for invites” only).
What to do?

By: Ross

Ross — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:06:15 +0000

Hi Fabrice,
SFE is an excellent tool, I’m sure folks all over the world are thankful for it. Maybe a GUI for building them in the next release?!?!? ;-)

Brilliant work, well done.

By: Fabrice

Fabrice — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:46:29 +0000

@ Ross.
Thanks for the good words about Sparklines For Excel (SFE).
I agree with you that the Nanochart’s or Bonavista’s “step by step” creation UI is very usefull when you first discover the add-in. In the approach I took, only 1 or 2 parameters are mandatory in the SFE formula. Once you have this clear, I really think it is much faster to input formulas 5and copy/paste)directly or through the XL native Function Wizard.
The weak points of SFE is the code itself. I cannot but admit that I am learning VBA through this project, so the code is certainly not the cleanest or most stable around. On the other hand, as SFE has been implemented by and “end user” and not a pure “coder”, I think it brings key features that the Microsoft team completely missed (reference lines or normality zones, possibility to highlight one point, scales…). MSF should have first checked the existing sparklines products around … maybe next time ? ;-)

@ Oliver… gracias por tu apoyo !

By: Bob Phillips

Bob Phillips — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:07:48 +0000

Disagree entirely with Oliver on CF in 2007. The only thing better about it is unlimited conditions. The UI is a car crash, the icons are childish, the implementations are weak, and they have failed to extend it properly.

Quite honestly, the 2003 CF with unlimited conditions, and more attributes to change would have been a great first step, instead they blew it.

By: Ross

Ross — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:25:02 +0000

Hi Oliver,
>>I don’t really think that Office 2007 was a disaster.

No nore do I, that’s why i said “relative disaster of 2007″. Relative to what it should have been, relative to what users wanted and relative to what MS wanted.

>>..many correct steps to make it a better tool to present information (New charting engine, Way Better Conditional Formatting, improved color palette).

There are a lot of people who would dissagree. The new charting “engine” is poor, really poor. Conditional formating I can take or leave, and improved colurs. – maybe.

Does the solver IU need inmoproving, or just the power of it? I think solver is easy to use, but clearly it needs to work with bigger number sets, see this: solving-hard-problems
Agree stats needs work, this has always been a weekness with Excel.

Thanks for the comments
Ross

By: Ross

Ross — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:16:27 +0000

I already linked to this!!! It is the most comprehensive addin, if there is on thing I dislike about it it’s the formula implmetion, but any amazing bit of work.

By: Oliver Montero

Oliver Montero — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:37:46 +0000

Best Sparklines addin: http://sparklines-excel.blogspot.com/

By: Oliver Montero

Oliver Montero — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:35:36 +0000

I don’t really think that Office 2007 was a disaster. It took many correct steps to make it a better tool to present information (New charting engine, Way Better Conditional Formatting, improved color palette). Following that trend Sparklines are a normal evolution.

I’m not fan of the whole Web Office and taking in account that today we have many excellent sparklines addins (some of which are free) I don’t think Ill be doing an upgrade to office 2010.

MS needs to focus on the analysis part of Excel for future versions. Solver interface needs to be improved, Pivot Tables could use some work, and easy to use tools to do serious statistical analysis (Datamining, Anova, DOE) could be better implemented.

The Ribbon…well…I can’t say anything good about it. It sucked in 2007 and keeps sucking on 2010.

By: Ross

Ross — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:28:42 +0000

Hi Sam,
Good news about the arrange tab, but what’s it got to do with Sparklines?!