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jack_ruru

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Show HN: Frockly – A visual editor for understanding complex Excel formulas

56 points·by jack_ruru·7 bulan yang lalu·21 comments

Ask HN: How do you deal with large, hard-to-read Excel formulas?

13 points·by jack_ruru·7 bulan yang lalu·12 comments

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jack_ruru
·6 bulan yang lalu·discuss
Larger update since the last post:

– Added the i18n foundation – Introduced an initial French translation – Implemented URL parameter support for loading state and navigation

Thanks again for the feedback — it directly influenced this refactor.
jack_ruru
·6 bulan yang lalu·discuss
Yes, they’re related in spirit — thanks for the link!

Spreadsheet-blocks focuses more on building spreadsheets visually, while Frockly is primarily about inspecting and refactoring existing Excel formulas and making their structure explicit.

I think they’re exploring adjacent but slightly different problems.
jack_ruru
·6 bulan yang lalu·discuss
Thanks for all the comments! I just added mobile view support and updated the README based on the feedback.
jack_ruru
·6 bulan yang lalu·discuss
That’s fair feedback — I’ll add static screenshots or a slower demo. Thanks for pointing it out.
jack_ruru
·6 bulan yang lalu·discuss
Good catch — I’ve added an MIT license to the repository. Thanks for pointing it out.
jack_ruru
·6 bulan yang lalu·discuss
Thanks! Please feel free to open an issue or a PR on GitHub. I’d be happy to discuss improvements there.
jack_ruru
·7 bulan yang lalu·discuss
Yeah, that’s usually what I do as well. Breaking formulas down into smaller pieces with clear intent helps a lot.

What I’ve been thinking about lately are cases where large formulas already exist, and changing the sheet structure (adding helper columns or moving things around) isn’t always practical.

In those situations, it feels useful to first understand what the existing formula is doing structurally, before deciding whether and how to refactor it.

I’m not convinced this is a better approach yet — just exploring the space.
jack_ruru
·7 bulan yang lalu·discuss
Yeah, I agree — LET and LAMBDA are surprisingly powerful. They definitely help with naming intermediate values and avoiding recomputation.

The limitation I keep feeling is less about expressiveness and more about working with existing formulas: debugging, making small changes, or explaining intent to someone else.

Even with LET/LAMBDA, the structure still lives mostly in a single line of text, and the formula bar UI doesn’t really help you reason about that structure. That’s the gap I’ve been curious about exploring.
jack_ruru
·7 bulan yang lalu·discuss
Yeah, that’s usually what I do as well. Breaking formulas into helper columns definitely makes things clearer.

What I’ve been running into is cases where large formulas already exist (and refactoring them into multiple columns isn’t always an option), so I started wondering whether a structural representation could help with understanding and small edits, rather than replacing that approach.

I’m not convinced it’s better yet — just exploring the space.