{"id":13369,"date":"2016-01-29T15:24:42","date_gmt":"2016-01-29T20:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=13369"},"modified":"2019-08-05T16:48:27","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T20:48:27","slug":"numbers-3-6-1-for-mac-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/29\/numbers-3-6-1-for-mac-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Numbers 3.6.1 for Mac Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rob Griffiths<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Beyond this one change, however, Numbers 3.6.1 looks much like Numbers 3.0. There’s still no formatting bar below the customizable toolbar, so everything is still controlled by the context-sensitive right-hand panel. And while this cleans up the look a lot, it leads to lots of clicking between tabs in the panel for many common tasks.<\/p>\n

Another annoyance that remains from version 3.0 is the lack of an editable formula bar. To edit a formula, you have to double-click the formula, which pops up a tiny editing box. This box can be both resized and moved, but for no reason I can discern, these changes aren’t permanent, so you have to resize and move the formula box every time you use it (assuming you don’t like its size\/location).<\/p>\n

AppleScript, which vanished in 3.0, has also returned from the dead, to the relief of scripters everywhere. (It’s even gained a couple new options for PDF and Excel export.) Macros, which didn’t exist before, still don’t exist. I expect them to continue to not exist in all future versions, so macro users should look elsewhere.<\/p>\n

This version of Numbers also returns Help to the app, sort of: Numbers no longer opens a webpage when you open help, but the in-app help viewer still requires an Internet connection.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He reports some big performance improvements. My 2013 test<\/a> of opening a CSV file now takes 44s in Numbers 3.6.1 (down from 3m25s) vs. 3s (up from 2s) for Excel 2016.<\/p>\n

Update (2016-02-02): I’ve found that, although some AppleScript features were restored, at least one property was removed\/renamed, which broke my scripts.<\/p>\n

Update (2016-02-05): The AppleScript support doesn’t seem to actually work. There is a dictionary, but nothing shows up in Script Debugger’s explorer. And basic scripts such as:<\/p>\n

\ntell application \"Numbers\"\n    get document 1\nend tell\n<\/pre>\n
fail with error -1,728.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rob Griffiths: Beyond this one change, however, Numbers 3.6.1 looks much like Numbers 3.0. There’s still no formatting bar below the customizable toolbar, so everything is still controlled by the context-sensitive right-hand panel. And while this cleans up the look a lot, it leads to lots of clicking between tabs in the panel for many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2019-08-05T20:48:29Z","apple_news_api_id":"8a9a9e19-6525-4415-8de7-489d75cb0f0f","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2019-08-05T20:48:30Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AipqeGWUlRBWN50iddcsPDw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[159,131,1857,30,32,609,241],"class_list":["post-13369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-applescript","tag-bug","tag-csv","tag-mac","tag-macapp","tag-microsoft-excel","tag-numbers"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13369"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13419,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369\/revisions\/13419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}