Many people use web spreadsheets as if using their desktop counterparts: to keep contacts, track progress, book-keeping, etc., with the exception that they’re more accessible. However, with the help of a technology called XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations), web spreadsheets can really be something out of your imagination.

XSLT is a technology dating back to the late 90’s. According to the specification, it is “a language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents”. But it has never been limited to generate XML documents only. At least from the examples given, it can be used to generate VRML documents which is non-XML.

So, how is the whole thing related to web spreadsheets?

Spreadsheet is basically a two-dimensional array of data, which can be represented in XML easily (example here: [orig] [XML]). One can create or download an XSLT stylesheet and transform the data into a format that is readable by other computer programs. That could be a mass-mailing engine reading vCal feeds, FireFox reading RSS live bookmarks, or Google Calendar reading iCal files. If you are a GIS zealot, you may be interested plotting spots and paths onto Google Maps. With the multi-user, live editing capability of web spreadsheets, you now have a collaborative, live data backend on the web for many different kinds of services.

Following are some examples can be created by web spreadsheet plus XSLT, can you think more?

1. KML for Google Maps and Google Earth

- It is how GIS zealots using EditGrid!

Valery’s Spreadsheet: http://www.editgrid.com/user/valery35/Locations

XSLT Stylesheet: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Locations.paths.kml.xsl

KML file: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Locations.paths.kml

Here is what you get on Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/…/Locations.paths.kml

2. iCal for Apple iCal

- Import spreadsheet to calendar programs - besides Apple iCal, it also works with MS Outlook/ Google Calendar and Mozilla Calendar!

Spreadsheet: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/EditGrid_Release_Schedule

XSLT Stylesheet: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/EditGrid_Release_Schedule.ics.xsl

ICS file: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/EditGrid_Release_Schedule.ics

Result on Google Calendar: http://www.google.com/…/EditGrid_Release_Schedule.ics

3. RSS Live Bookmark for Mozilla FireFox

- With this, together with remote data fetch, all data on web can be read by RSS…

Spreadsheet: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Bookmark

XSLT Stylesheet: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Bookmark.rss.xsl

Result in Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader/…/Bookmark.rss

4. Music Playlist for different music players

- Which player you’re using?

Playlist spreadsheet: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Songs

For Winamp, XMMS, Realplayer and Window Media Player - Try this:

XSLT Stylesheet: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Songs.m3u.xsl

Result: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Songs.m3u (P.S. M3U also support many other different players)

For other playlist formats, like M3U Ext., PLS, SMIL and XSPF, goes here and you will found all these formats available.

5. FusionCharts

- Well, we never limit your choice to create charts

Spreadsheet: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Oil_Production

XSLT Spreadsheet: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Demo_of_My_Data_Format

Result: http://www.editgrid.com/doc/xslt/Oil_Production/World!E1?content-type=text/html

Let see how our users use EditGrid with XSLT, with their expert knowledge + imagination, here are some examples of what happening in EditGrid commuity — showing the unlimited possibility:

http://bbs.keyhole.com/…Number=593848

http://semant.blogspot.com/../adding-triples-using-editgrid.html

http://bbs.keyhole.com/…/Main/609661/

http://www.digitalgeography.co.uk/…the-possibilities-are-endless/

Public Beta 15.7 (rev 4890)

• [#5702] Safeguard for loading non-existent spreadsheet
• Improved sorting handling mechanism
• Merged style history
• Fixed invalid wrapping of permission icons

Public Beta 15.6 (rev 4845)

• Reduced false positive in detection of connection error
• Caching in back-end server to improve performance

Public Beta 15.5 (rev 4816)

• [#5680] Suppressed security warning on registration page
• Fixed bug where access denial is not handled properly in live chat

Public Beta 15.4 (rev 4801)

• [#5651] Fixed cell border malfunction in post-to-blog

Public Beta 15.3 (rev 4792)

• Fixed bug in Opera where key ‘Q’ is wrongly captured as F2

Public Beta 15.2 (rev 4785)

• Support border export
• [#5645] Recognise hyperlinks and email addresses in chat message history
• [#5643] Fixed bug in re-searching on Finder result screen
• [#5557] Fixed bug in Japanese characters in permalink
• [#5382] Optimisation in row/column operation

One of the great things about EditGrid is that it allows users to collaborate online simultaneously. Many times we hear from our users how great it is to be able to share important information with colleagues from afar without having to email spreadsheets back and forth. But collaboration is not just about structured data — you may often have to discuss with your colleague how to organise your data; which data source is more reliable and up-to-date; which entries require attention; and so on. We’ve seen chatting on spreadsheet but that’s in general undesirable and not easy to manage.

So we bring to you live chat on EditGrid. In the status bar below the grid you will now find a dialogue icon, as well as how many users are “online” on the same spreadsheet. If you find your colleague or friend popping by, just bring on the chat box by clicking the dialogue icon to begin live chat. No more constant switching between the browser and your favourite IM client — just stay at the spreadsheet and edit as you will while texting with your colleagues and friends at the same time! Better still, you can toggle the chat box easily using the Ctrl+M hotkey.

(If you find the message “Chat session not started” next to the dialogue icon, don’t worry — we are enabling chatting on a browser-by-browser basis, and chatting in your browser will be supported soon.)Live chat is just one of the new feature available in Public Beta 15. Also available since Public Beta 15 are:

• Official Opera 9.0 support. We notice that when Opera is superior in terms of both performance and functionalities in certain areas against other browsers when loading EditGrid, and we’ve been paying special attention to make EditGrid good in Opera 9.0 since its official release in September. We are now satisfied that EditGrid boasts one of the best support to Opera 9.0 among the Web 2.0 applications.
• Cell properties. We go one step further than spreadsheet revision history and allow you to view a cell’s last update record. Simply click “Cell properties” at the context menu.
  
• Workspace sort order. After numerous user requests we’ve made it default to sort by last modification time — and you can change the default sorting order in your preferences as well.
  
• And more.

That’s it for now; let us know what do you think about the new features at the EditGrid Forum. And many more exciting things are to come at the forthcoming releases. Bring it on!