I have been using the format() function to make very useful distillations of data. Its a great way to have one column to represent 10+ columns and condense the information. Using rectangle() is a powerful way to reduce cognitive load on the user. However, if you want to line up text and rectangle on…

Wow flashbacks to a 4 year younger version of myself. I believe this can be easily handled now with the card() formula. card( concat(User1, linebreak(), User2), concat(Rectangle(user1params), linebreak(), Rectangle(user2params)) ) It’s not perfect but helps in many uses cases.

@Paul_Danyliuk The requirement I don’t think is very uncommon when you expand your thinking about the potential for the app. When I first started using it I would have multiple columns for all of the information for a row/object. But I realized that by using format() I could collapse all of this inf…

[image] Paul_Danyliuk: having two bars for two different metrics (age and income) don’t make much sense Well, sure - that’s valid - these are certainly metrics that don’t belong together. But what if the metrics were sensible? This post - like almost every post in this community - uses examp…

@Johg_Ananda @Bill_French fair enough, with the real-world example this makes much more sense. Although in this very case, I believe two columns instead of one could work just about as well, and ensure proper alignment. Or yeah, go with the monospaced font approach.

[image] Johg_Ananda: rectangles further reduce cognitive load and allow the user to quickly scan the canvas to see trends and insights. Bingo! (that’s all I wanted to say, but Discourse forces me to type all this other distractive text)

[image] Paul_Danyliuk: I believe two columns instead of one could work just about as well That’s the point - it’s not 1 vs 2 columns; it’s 1 vs 8 columns. Usability Nuance: Even if you separated the labels from the rectangles in side-by-side columns, an unsuspecting user could inadvertently …

It’s all about trade-offs anyway, always. Right now the trade-off is that if the text value is longer or shorter than expected, the bars won’t be aligned anymore. Just using N tabs is not anywhere near reliable for column formatting.

[image] Paul_Danyliuk: if the text value is longer or shorter than expected, the bars won’t be aligned anymore Correct. This has been documented with warnings and disclosures in this thread. :wink: No one wants a brittle solution; me included. However, the actual use case he published employs…

@Bill_French gets it. I can think of a lot of ways to make this SUPER useful. Basically think of it like this, if you could embed a table within a table, what could you do? You could create incredibly rich “books” by having a Table.Chapters and then one cell contains the “content” : a rich canvas …

[image] Johg_Ananda: some kind of formatted narrative Yep. [image] Johg_Ananda: I think coda is winking to us about this Yep. I’ll wager that someone like @Ben_Lee will see this and use it to demonstrate to the team that all this great work and late nights has paid off - more importa…

OK @Johg_Ananda @Bill_French here’s something that could help you render your perfect “formatted narrative”: [image] MEGA TRICK: SVG in Coda (one step away from generated charts and mind maps!) Tips and Hacks I discovered the way to render SVG (vector graphics) in Coda. …

Show objects side by side in two columns using format()

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Paul_Danyliuk January 16, 2020, 4:12pm 26

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Show objects side by side in two columns using format()

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