I need a different kind of spreadsheet app for OSX

June 15, 2013 6:57 PM

Is there a spreadsheet app that's geared more toward creating sortable lists of stuff? I know I can do this with Apple's Numbers app, but it feels so clunky. I don't want column "A" "B" "C" and so forth. I want to name the columns, just as the columns in iTunes are named (song, album, rating, etc). I don't want to right click a column and choose from a list of options to choose "Sort Ascending/Descending". I want to click the column title and have it sort based on that column, just as iTunes does when in song view, or in a playlist. Click song, the list is sorted by song. Click album the list is sorted by album. I'm not working with any calculations. I want to create easily sortable lists of my stuff... like wine!

Let's say I wanted to make a list of wines I've tried, and I wanted to be able to sort the list in different ways. My columns would be something like this:

- Color (red / white)
- Kind (merlot, red zin, pinot, etc etc etc)
- Origin (where the wine is from)
- Price.
- Year.
- Rating (1 through 5)

I know I could create this spreadsheet in Numbers, but I'm hoping to find an app that's better suited to this kind of task... and god I hate right clicking and scrolling through a menu just to sort a column when, in iTunes, 1 click does it.

Help me, hivemind! Is there an app for that?

posted by Mr Ected to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

I think what you're looking for is the "Filter" option that is standard in Microsoft Excel and Google Spreadsheets. I've never used Numbers so I can't tell you if it's there, but there's probably some kind of analog.

I suggest switching to Google Docs and following the instructions here. Amazingly the example sheet they use in these instructions is about wine!
posted by telegraph at 7:14 PM on June 15, 2013

Response by poster: I really don't want an online app though, which is why I never looked at google docs. I just want a few columns. Click on a column header and it sorts the list based on that column. This seems like such a simple thing. I'm surprised by how hard it is to find.
posted by Mr Ected at 7:59 PM on June 15, 2013

It sounds like you want an access equivalent rather than an excel equivalent?

xtabulator might be up your alley.
posted by jaymzjulian at 8:09 PM on June 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

FileMaker Pro is probably what you're after — or Bento, come to think of it, as it is a bit closer to the scale of your problem.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:09 PM on June 15, 2013

Tellico, perhaps? I haven't used it much myself but it seems to be promising for your requirements:

Tellico is a KDE application for organizing your collections. It provides default templates for books, bibliographies, videos, music, video games, coins, stamps, trading cards, comic books, and wines.

Tellico allows you to enter your collection in a catalogue database, saving many different properties like title, author, etc. Two different views of your collection are shown. On the left, your entries are grouped together by any field you like, allowing you to see how many are in each group. On the right, selected fields are shown in column format, allowing you to sort by any field. On the bottom is a customizable HTML view of the current entry. The entry editor is a dialog box where you enter the data.

An OS X release is available via Fink.
posted by pont at 12:10 AM on June 16, 2013

Spreadsheets usually don't do name changes of columns. What you can do is put the names in line 1, then do sorts with the "header row" active, allowing you to sort by the names you put in line 1 and work with that.
posted by mephron at 1:02 AM on June 16, 2013

I'm a big fan of the Calc application in Openoffice and Libreoffice. Both of which are free on the Mac. They can both do exactly what you want, but it will require a bit of Macro programming. You'd need to create a Macro that turns a cell into a button, and activates the "sort cell by ascending/descending" function.

This is made easier by a nice built-in Macro Recorder feature. Tutorial here: http://wiki.openoffice.org/w/images/b/ba/0312CG-CalcMacros.pdf
posted by Anoplura at 2:08 AM on June 16, 2013

Pages lets you sort columns, just click on the column header, there is also a reorganize function which will sort the entire table using a single column as a sort key, it does other things as well. You coud automate this with some judicious AppleScripting or by looking at Automator which can record keystrokes and mouse clicks for later playback but I don't think it's going to happen with a single click.

Spreadsheets don't do this sort of thing well as it is not their primary purpose, the fact that they have been abused to fudge this kind of functionality is only testament to the old adage that "to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail". IMHO, what you really want is a simple database with a pointy-clicky interface.
posted by epo at 2:56 AM on June 16, 2013

Just for clarification. You would like to sort the columns in ascending/descending order. What you are trying to avoid is the extra mouse clicks required to sort?

Edit: I am not trying to be snarky. I wanted to make sure I understand the question.
posted by phil at 10:24 AM on June 16, 2013

Response by poster: phil: yes, I'm trying to avoid a bunch of extra mouse clicks every single time I want to change the order. List by year: click scroll choose option click click. List by rating: click scroll choose option click click. And I'm trying to avoid the overall clunkiness of use. I hate having to freeze a header since the frozen header still gets listed as item #1 in the column to the far left. Plus, it seems dumb to freeze a row of names while a useless row of letters sits above it.

For my needs, a full blown spreadsheet app feels like taking a battleship out for a day of fishing on a lake. Bento looks like it could be what I want - but it also looks like overkill for my needs, not to mention it's $50. Still, it's a thought. The open office macro idea would work, but it would require a ton of setup every time I wanted to make a new list.

I realize a spreadsheet is the wrong tool for the job. I've been using them because I was given a spreadsheet with a wine list and I guess I stuck with it ever since.
posted by Mr Ected at 10:45 AM on June 16, 2013

To my mind, Calc (as suggested by Anoplura above) is the closest thing to what you want - it's not exactly what you're looking for (you'll still have to freeze the header row), but with a little customization it could work better for you.

And it's free.


There are a few tips that might make it work better for you:

1. You can hide the column and row names.

View -> Column & Row Headings, and *poof*! - they're gone.


2. You can sort a table with two clicks.

NOTE: This requires that you don't have any empty rows or columns within your table.

Click anywhere in the row you want to sort by.

Now, click the Sort Ascending button or the Sort Descending button.

Calc selects all the data in your table, then sorts by the column you chose.

It's not a single click, but it's not THAT much more complicated.


3. You can set up a keyboard shortcut for the Sort command.

Tools -> Customize -> Keyboard ; at the top under Shortcut Keys click to select your key (for me, Cmd-J); under Category, click Tools; under Function, click Sort; then click Modify

Now, if you click anywhere in a table of data and choose your command key (Cmd-J, or whatever), you'll get a sort dialog you can tab through (keyboard instead of mouse) to choose your sort headings.

To repeat: as with the tip above, you can usually just click a single cell within a table of data and choose Sort, and Calc will select the whole table for you.




It's not perfect, by any means, but it works okay for me. I use Calc for this sort of thing all the time and I just work around the (to me) minor annoyances you've described because I haven't found anything closer to the ideal.


Alternately, you can try using Base (also a free component of OpenOffice / LibreOffice), but I've always found my old standby Calc to be faster to set up.
posted by kristi at 7:07 PM on June 16, 2013

2nding Bento (or FileMaker Pro), even though my info is purely secondhand. You're effectively in need of a database. Were you on Windows XP I'd probably have said Microsoft Access.
posted by sesquipedalia at 11:21 PM on June 16, 2013