SpreadJS has evolved to become one of the best JavaScript spreadsheets on the market, and we're just getting started!
In the past year, we released two Service Packs that included some great new features, such as React and Vue support, an NPM package release, and an enhancement to Undo and Redo. In addition, we released a new major v12 version that has some of our top-requested features, such as JavaScript shapes, rich text formatting, and new chart types. With the coming 2019 year, we have two Service Pack releases planned for April and July, as well as the major v13 release scheduled for late fall.
I'm happy to introduce some of the great new features we have planned for this coming year.
New cell types added to the JavaScript spreadsheet
We're planning on adding more cell types to SpreadJS. In addition to generally adding more useful cell types, we're adding a few that are already in other platforms of Spread. With these new cell types, the Spread platform will become more unified as the feature gap is closed.
Mask and RangeTemplate are a couple of the main cell types that our users have been asking for in SpreadJS. With RangeTemplate, users can do things like create a row template for use with a database for a car dealership, showing things like price, make, and model neatly in a single, concise row. With another cell type, Date Picker, users can select dates for an item in a sales entry database.
Implement JavaScript diagrams with SmartArt
One of Excel's best features for implementing diagrams is SmartArt. With SpreadJS, we're going to be implementing this feature using our new Shapes feature.
While shapes currently enable different types of diagrams and charts to be created, SmartArt with predefined diagrams can help users easily create the diagrams that they need. This will be particularly useful in the Designer, with an added drop-down menu to select the kind of SmartArt to be inserted into the workbook. With this feature, users can, for example, create a flow chart for a product release.
New cell style enhancement: cell states
Cell states are an enhancement to cell styles that we've been considering adding to SpreadJS. This functionality will dd more options to cell styles in terms of how users want to style their cells: whether a cell is being hovered over, disabled, being edited, etc.
These could also be referenced in formulas, giving users more control over how those cell styles are changed. This can be used for a financial dashboard that changes which information is shown based on which cells the user is hovering the mouse cursor over.
We're also planning an input mask style, which would allow users to do things like input specially formatted strings into a form of passwords.
Threaded comments in cells
Another thing we're planning to add are threaded comments. Similar to Google Sheets' cell comment feature, we want to add to our own cell comments by adding threads. This will allow users to make records of changes that were made to cells, as well as promote discussion within a workbook. We can also add a "Resolve" action to mark a thread as resolved. This can be used for listing support cases in a workbook, with threaded comments to discuss each case and resolve it.
Excel 2019 UX
One of the main things that makes SpreadJS so easy to use is its familiar Excel-like UI. A lot of our customers want a user experience that they're familiar with. With the number of Excel-like features that we've added to our already-expansive list, it's only natural that those features should look and act like Excel, too. With an updated Excel 2019 user experience, users can do things like design financial reports.
Of course, these are just a few features that we're planning in the future for SpreadJS, but we're always welcoming to feature ideas from our customers. If you have any specific features you would like to see added, don't hesitate to contact our sales team at us.sales@grapecity.com!
Kevin Ashley