Public Beta 8.1 (rev 3150)

• Fixed bug in remote data: used default language where none is defined
• Fixed unexpected behaviour upon pressing Tab at formula bar
• [#4856] Hotkey for sorting

Four months have passed since our first usability test. We’re not neglecting the usability of EditGrid, but we’re resorting to real users’ feedbacks after gaining more publicity.

But after all, we still believe observing users with their keyboard and mouse actions is the best way to discover usability problems. So, a second usability test was held in our office. It was a hot day, with air-conditioning extended after office hours. The subjects were our 6 newly contracted software testers. They are all new to EditGrid.

EditGrid Usability Test Report 2, 2006-07-21

System

EditGrid, Beta 7

Subjects

6 undergraduate students, with IT background.

Procedure

Ask subjects to create a budgeting spreadsheet for a student association, and email it out to invite members to edit. Record the whole process for evaluation.

Observations

1. Context Menu is missing or wrong in various locations. Including row/column headers, and when a cell is in edit mode (F2).
2. Toolboxes not covering windowed controls. This is an IE-only bug, which has been worked around in our Menu Bar implementation. We need to extend this to the Toolboxes also.
3. Focused Toolboxes not bubbled to the front. Something we sacrified for more important features. Should consider giving it a higher priority.
4. Toolboxes can move out of visible area. Which should be bounded.
5. Improper way of word-wraping long text/formula under edit mode (F2). The current implementation hinders the input of long line of text.
6. ‘Create New’ is not prominant. New users still find it hard to locate the button to create new spreadsheet.
7. Various spreadsheet operations require grid reload, which can be avoided. Including changing spreadsheet permissions, adding tags, sharing, etc. To be ajaxified.
8. No visual indication of cell references. This is a very useful visual aid in creating formulas, but was in low priority.
9. Toolbar icons not flowing together in groups. For small screens, our toolbar icons will overflow to the next line, but not having the grouping being kept intact.
10. Cannot merge cells. Again, something we sacrified for more important features, but is now on the top of everybody’s wishlist. Must give it a higher priority.
11. Incomplete keyboard and mouse support for range operations. Including range selection using Shift+Click, drag to fill with Ctrl being pressed, etc.
12. Insert and delete row not disabled on column selection, and vice versa. This should be disabled as these kinds of operations give no sensible outcome.
13. Permalink feature is hard to discover. Perhaps we should show it up in more places.

Self-Evaluation

The test reveals no major usability problem. But having many minor usability problems is even worse than having a big one. We have been adding many new features in the past few months, but were not giving high attention to usability improvement and the feature harmonisation.

On completing more and more items in the list of most wanted features, I strongly believe it’s time to come back to usability issues.

END OF REPORT

EditGrid Beta 8 (rev 3107) incorporates the following notable new features:

• [#2721] Undo/redo
• [#3017] Sorting
• [#4417] [#4418] [#4419] Localisation: Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese user interfaces available; and more coming soon.

Other new features include:

• Front-end library revamp
• Allow any user with read access to email a spreadsheet
• [#4379] Prompt user to accept a pending invitation at Incoming Spreadsheets upon access
• [#4174] Restore/purge multiple spreadsheets at Trash at once
• [#4667] Further enhancements on menu bar

Also fixed in this release are:

• [#4826] Display spaces in sheet name at sheet navigation
• [#4831] Rename link at menu bar for unsupported browser
• [#4479] Post to blog shows difference cell height in Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla FireFox
• [#4405] Improved filename handling at send by email
• [#4821] Improved handling of special characters (\ / # ? . % *) in tags
• [#4760] Fixed potential privacy issue while creating new spreadsheets
• [#4705] Fixed bug where roll back to previous revision fails to roll back sheet renaming
• [#4672] Notes and tags alignment on public sheet list
• [#4741] (# 50) Fixed security issue where login with JavaScript disabled would expose password at URL
• [#4684] Fixed link of permalinks on menu bar
• [#4726] Import default style properly
• [#4694] Captured hotkey properly while not focused on grid
• Improved word wrap handling for HTML exporting
• Enhanced performance for repetitive row/column insertion/deletion
• [#4692] Removed tags when a co-editor rejects an incoming spreadsheet
• [#4703] Unified menu items under My Workspace
• [#4446] Clear toolbar button states properly upon deleting row/column
• [#4687] Do not allow owner to apply lock over a range locked by another user
• [#4709] Fixed default date/time formatting output for =NOW()
• [#4766] Fixed file download bug

And new functionalities supported by API since this release include:

• Fixed bug where a logged in user cannot create new sheets
• [#4657] Integration with My Workspace, first level
• [#4698] Export spreadsheet
• Sudoku mini-app
• Fixed style mask issue
• Fixed critical issue when calling SheetAdd

Public Beta 7.4 (rev 3011)

• [#4707] Restricted HTML exporting to first 3,000 rows
• [#4735] Security fix: user without read access should not be able to export a spreadsheet
• [#4711] HTML exporting: Powered by EditGrid wording

Public Beta 7.3 (rev 2947)

• [#4713] Applied and saved default style to spreadsheets properly

Public Beta 7.2 (rev 2927)

• [#4714] Fixed critical bug where loading grid in Safari would crash browser (support for Safari is still on the way)

Public Beta 7.1 (rev 2911)

• Word wrap in HTML exporting
• [#4218] Fixed bug of Ctrl+End keystroke sequence
• [#4707] Restricted HTML exporting to first 10,000 rows
• [#4671] Re-written front-end code to avoid being falsely filtered out by content-based proxy servers
• Performance enhancement on repeated row/column insertion/deletion
• Restricted paste region size
• Fixed tag picker bug on trailing space
• Fixed remote data bug where selecting Exchange Rate would load a new page
• Improved context menu alignment strategy

Like previous major releases, EditGrid Beta 7 (rev 2856) is a continuous improvement release with new features in both spreadsheet functionalities and unique web-based collaboration features. The most notable new features are:

• [#3736] Cut/copy-and-paste from EditGrid to MS Excel and other desktop applications
• [#3737] Cut/copy-and-paste from MS Excel and other desktop applications to EditGrid
• [#4278] Cell/range locking
• [#4395] Menu bar in grid mode
• [#4508] Spreadsheet tagging

Other new features include:

• [#4602] Ctrl+1 — hotkey for advanced number formatting
• [#3965] Word wrap — wrap long sentences to next line
• [#4647] Unmark a previously marked revision
• [#4621] More currency support — R$ (Brazilian real)
• [#4487] Added reference to EditGrid on exported HTML version
• [#4598] Support conditional colouring at advanced number formatting

Also fixed in this release are:

• [#4446] Fixed bug where deleting row/column fails to update toolbar button states
• [#4615] Fixed forced logout upon IP mis-match
• [#4574] Only co-editor with write access can edit sheet notes
• [#4611] Do not encode space when downloading multiple spreadsheets
• [#4622] More robust handling of remote data input
• [#4607] Post-to-blog “Powered by EditGrid” button should open new window
• [#4608] Fixed MSIE JavaScript error upon resizing grid
• [#4522] [#4524] [#4596] [#4599] AJAX improvements on remote data
• [#4543] Update remote data reference upon row/column insertion/deletion
• [#4551] Fixed bug where remote data feeds empty value for unavailable markets
• [#4643] Fixed remote data for Asian markets

And new functionalities supported by API since this release include:

• [#4594] Style
• [#4576] Only co-editor with write access can edit sheet notes
• [#4641] Check for deleting last sheet
• [#4629] Host-based authentication
• [#4557] Fixed inconsistent organisation name output for personal user
• [#4609] Web login