Snit
On 4/3/17, 7:30 PM, in article guc8892.a@rooftop.invalid, "owl" <owl@rooftop.invalid>wrote:

...

owl
Numbers -- updating a sheet with data from a completely separate file.

Snit
Well, this whole thing is a work around to try to emulate what Numbers does easily... have multiple tables all on one sheet

owl
And the question is why are you doing that anyway when you can just use different sections of one sheet for the work?

Snit
Why do it that way when you are not limited to it? Why not have each logical section be its own table?

owl
Because it doesn't need to be separated.

Snit
Need. No. But why not have the logical separations be separate visually and logically?

owl
You haven't shown any benefit to that.

Snit
Sure I have... it allows you to group logically separate concepts into separate tables on the same sheet, it allows you to have data where columns do not line up, etc. I focused on this in the video on the magic spell calculation.

On the other side, I do not believe you have offered any benefits to denying such choice.

Keep in mind nothing in Numbers forces you to do it this way.

owl
I can freeze ranges and view distant cells, or I can jump to a distant table with

g "table3"

That jump could also be tied to a function key, so that hitting f3 would take me there.

Snit
What is the benefit to combining them? And what about different widths? I talk about that some here:

<https://youtu.be/VzVKlou6byU>

Here is the video I spoke of which talks about some of the benefits you say I have not shown.

Makes it easier to update and maintain and move things around anyway... and table rows from one table do not effect the width of other data, etc.

owl
Who cares about that?

Snit
People who use spreadsheets generally care about them being easier to update and main and move things around.

owl
About 1/2 of 1 percent of the population. Your way is like have a 200 acre farm and never leaving the front porch.

Snit
What? And you can do it all in one table if you want... but, again, why would you want to be limited to that?

owl
I can live with a 22-million cell limit.

Snit
I have not suggested the point of multiple tables in one sheet has anything to do with bypassing a limit of cells per table.

...

It is running a spreadsheet. And it is from a known, trusted source.

owl
I thought you stipulated an untrusted source. You did specify that you did not really know what the file did. So would you run a Numbers spreadsheet from an untrusted source?

Snit
Run the file? You mean open it in Numbers. Sure. The risk is very tiny. Compare that to the risk of someone following your suggestions to merely rename an open file... if they do not know what that are doing they could easily and repeatedly lose data.

owl
The risk is huge. It is closed-source.

Snit
What harm would you expect me to have run into. Anyone? By all means point to it.

With YOUR suggestion, with an open source tool, we saw the hazard: an unknowing person could have lost data. Twice.