Spreadsheets in the terminal with neoscim
With the advent of my personal business, I’ve needed to use spreadsheets more often. Mostly tracking for bills and whatnot. There is a large problem though. This would normally require one of a few options:
- Google Sheets
- Microsoft 365
- Excel
- Open Office
- LibreOffice
Options 1-3 are non-starters, since they rely on proprietary code bases. And the problems with 4 and 5 is that they are large GUI applications. I can’t speak too much on behalf of Open Office, but LibreOffice just doesn’t boot quickly. Now yes, compared to Excel it boots instantly. But compared to something like neovim, it takes ages.
The second problem with one of these office suites is that they are made for normies. Do normies want to learn keybinds? No. Therefore; these apps are built for use with a mouse 🤮. So now we have some requirements:
- Start quickly (comparable to (n)vim).
- Use vim-like keybinds.
- Be free (libre) software.
- Act like Excel (I use it for day-job work).
These requirements leave us with either sc or scim.
I gave scim a bit of a try, but the keybinds just weren’t vim-y enough.
It also has a problem of cells not being duck-typed / polymorphic.
What does this mean?
It means that in scim I can insert both a number and a string into a cell, with the cell holding both values at the same time.
This means that you have to choose via what key you press, what type of data you are inserting.
This is not how Excel works 😔.
I want one keybind for entering all the datatypes.
I’m sure that scim is great for the people who use it, but I’m not one of those people.
Now entering… NEOSCIM!
To fix my perceived problems with scim I created neoscim!
This program solves all my problems with the previously discussed options.
- Input text with your favorite vim keys (i,I,a,A,r)
- Cells detect if you are entering a string or a number, and just accept it (duck typing!)
- Note: that cells with things such as formulas have the actual value (the formula) and the displayed value (the solution)
- Fast launch time (feels same as neovim)
Why the name?
In vim fashion:
vi -> vim -> neovimsc -> scim -> neoscim