Here's what's new in wikiCalc Beta release 0.95:

In addition to all the new features added in What's new in Beta 0.91, Alpha Version 0.3, and Alpha Version 0.2, there are some new features in Alpha 0.95. The new version is upwards compatible with the last, but is not downwards compatible -- once you upgrade do not use the old program to edit new data files.

Overall this version should be version similar to 0.91 with the addition of lots of functions (but not all that are planned) and a few major features. Details about some of the new features and functions can be found in the help on the appropriate screen when running.

Here is a list of the main changes:
  • Added functions: AND, OR, ATAN2, AVERAGE, COUNT (updated), COUNTA, COUNTBLANK, MAX, MIN, PRODUCT, SUM (updated), STDEV, STDEVP, VAR, VARP, CHOOSE, COLUMNS, ROWS, COUNTIF, SUMIF, EVEN, ODD, FACT, TRUE, FALSE, TODAY, ISBLANK, ISERR, ISERROR, ISLOGICAL, ISNA, ISNONTEXT, ISNUMBER, ISTEXT, DDB, SLN, EXACT, EXP, LN, LOG10, LOG, FIND, LEFT, RIGHT, LEN, LOWER, UPPER, MID, REPLACE, REPT, TRIM, SUBSTITUTE
  • The constants "true" and "false" are treated in cells by themselves as logical values
  • Upgraded sheet references: Can be pagename (e.g., assumptions!B9), string ("assumptions"!B9), or cell reference (C10!B9 with "assumptions" in cell C10). If the sheet name starts with "http:", HTTP GET is used to load a page from the web that is the "published source" of a wikiCalc page. The http: method lets you provide values to other web sites. Note that sheet references that use strings in another cell (such as C10!B9) may use the "hidden" format (e.g., for cell C10 or that row or column) to make it easier to make the sheet look cleaner.
  • Wiki text in a cell has the added form of the [cell...] commands: cell:B7, cell:pagename!B7, cell:http://www.dom.com/page.txt!B7, and cell:A9!B7. Values picked up this way are formatted as they appeared when last published, i.e., if it is formatted a dollars and cents on the original, the copy is also dollars and cents.
  • Editing a page takes you to Edit tab, not Preview tab
  • Reference to blank cell as text returns empty string, not zero
  • Help text now supports easy override through the WKCdefinitions.txt file which can include UTF-8 characters to aid in localization
  • Changed "^" to be left-associative, as per new Open Formula spec (2^3^2 is now 64, not 512).
  • Implemented pretty full custom formats. Much of what you find in other spreadsheets works including custom formats (e.g, "#,##0.0%_);[RED](#,##0.0%)"). Missing is scientific format, the "@", and probably a few other things. Included are dates and time components, comparisons like [>100], thousands and millions scale factors, and more. The Format tab Numbers settings have been updated with many more formats, as well as a new "hidden" format setting.
  • Along with the new format code there is a method for selecting currency symbols on a per cell basis.
  • All of the predefined formats and currency setting are customizable in the WKCdefinitions.txt file, as is the thousands separator and decimal character (for output only). This should aid in localization.
  • Changed the Preview Publish settings to make the HTML file optional, add an optional Javascript file to create embeddable output (see below), and a setting to control access in "Live View". The old "Publish Live" has been removed.
  • See the description below of "Live View". As part of this, added Live View functionality including ?view=site/page, ?view=logout, &type=, &cell; added read only access that is used for live view to the Tools User Administration (so you can let others log in to read a rendered page but not edit it); and added "mod" cell attribute for use with &cell live view functionality.
  • The Edit This Page functionality has been cleaned up quite a bit. Edit This Page now checks for pages already open for editing and gives a warning. Page links ... stay "live" in live view and while editing. The default HTML template has code to let you logout if you are logged in.
  • Many bugs fixed

Embeddable Output

If Publish Embeddable ".js" Version is checked on Preview Publish or a page's Properties, at publish time a copy of the newly published HTML will be saved (along with appropriate Javascript) in the HTML directory, but with the extension ".js" instead of ".html". Only the HTML of the sheet itself is saved in this version, not the surrounding template. This file may be dynamically included in any other HTML page on any web site by using HTML code such as:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.domain.com/pagename.js"> </script>

The result is static and is not recalculated when accessed the way that it is with live viewing.

Live View

This is a feature through which you can have the most recently published version of a page rendered for display upon request, usually after first doing a recalculation. Unlike static HTML which the server just returns as it was created at publish time, this "live" rendering is done by the server executing this program to read the page source data file, doing the recalculation, and then converting the results to HTML. References to values on other pages, functions that return the current date/time, etc., can result in different results than at the time the page was last published.

You access a page for live viewing by accessing the URL For Editing (a Site setting) with appropriate arguments. The browser accessing the page must be logged in as a user with read or read/write priviledges to the page's site or the page must have been published with Allow Live View Without Login checked.

The general form for requesting a live view page is something like:

http://www.domain.com/
cgi-bin/wikicalccgi.pl?view=sitename/pagename

There are five types of output that can be obtained through the live view functionality: page (a normal HTML page, including the template HTML), html (just the HTML of the sheet rendered as a table), js (Javascript to embed the HTML of the table within another page), cdata (the table HTML as cdata within XML for use by Ajax, innerHTML, etc.), and source (the page source in the same format it is produced by "Publish Source"). The "page" type is the default. If not logged in and requesting type "page", a login page will be displayed. Type "source" is only provided if "Publish Source" was checked for this page for the most recent publish.

You specify the type with a "type" argument:

?view=sitename/pagename&type=outputtype

The saved page is recalculated before display unless there is a "&recalc=no" argument. The saved page is not modified by viewing it, even if a recalculation is done.

The values of cells may be temporarily changed before recalculation by using a "cell" argument:

&cell:coord:type=value

"coord" is a cell coordinate, such as B7; "type" is "n" (numeric), "t" (text), or "e:na" (error: NA value); and "value" is the value. There may only be one cell argument for each coordinate. The cell must have "Live View Modifiable" set to "yes" (one of the Format Misc settings). The modifications are not saved in the data file.

The logged in user may be logged out using the following argument:

?view=logout

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