Neal Campbell's Blog about life and new media ... have a nice day! ☺

A Little App. I’d Like on My Desktop

Saturday, I was writing a check for rent and paying other bills. I opened a spreadsheet in Numbers to keep a running total of about 5 debits and credits. Numbers is great, but for a quick little list, I wish there was a lightweight, desktop widget with about 10 rows and 2 columns. The left column would be for labels and the right for numbers. The bottom right cell would provide the sum and it would look something like this:

Mini Spreadsheet Concept

I’m not a big fan of Dashboard because it lives on a different layer. I’d like it to have QuickSpread on the desktop so I’m thinking Adobe Air?

 



4 Comments

  1. Great notion! I’m forever using Excel to do short columns of numbers, which feels like extreme overkill. It’s such a common need, it’s hard to believe no one’s done this yet. Is it hiding out there somewhere?

  2. I can think of a quick solution to your problem. You’d have to spare about half an hour but I reckon it could work…

    1) Download & Install the Application XSpinner – http://www.optima-system.com/xspinner/

    2) Enable the option that allows you to place Dashboard elements on the desktop.

    3) Create a simple Google Spreadsheet with your columns, publish it (but privately)

    4) Use Safari’s Web Clip tool to make a new widget of your spreadsheet.

    5) Pull the widget down to the Desktop level by clicking on it, holding it, and get out of dashboard.

    A quick solution to your problem perhaps, let me know what you think. It’s not perfect, but I suppose it’s a temporary and free solution for the Mac.

  3. You sir, have the cheapest bills in the universe.

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