Spreadsheets: Copy / Paste / Import

Spreadsheets really suck!... Long live spreadsheets, they're super useful! This simple contradiction, however, is likely a part of our technological lives for the rest of time. Unless AI removes the need for people to directly interact with data, spreadsheets are likely here to stay. And, for good reason. They're actually super useful!

As a software/database developer you need to realize that not everyone intuitively understands the solution you've created. In fact, the learning curve, may just be too painful - at least relative to what they may already know. Most users will tend to default to what they feel comfortable with. In the not so distant past, managing data was actually just words on paper. In fact, there's a word you're probably familiar with, it's 'list' - a very common development term. Yep, we still use lists.

Did you notice that? I referenced the fact that you're developing software and you can't really create software WITHOUT using lists. So, why not simply accommodate users' needs to simply default to using a spreadsheet. You just need a simple way to get the data in and out of your solution. Fortunately, this has all been solved by the tab and comma characters. If your users are using a lot of spreadsheets, then enjoy this video article and the associated technique file as we work with the MBS plug-in's super powerful Matrix.* suite of functions for some super functionality. Let's just Copy/Paste that spreadsheet data into a virtual spreadsheet and manipulate the data to fit our needs.

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