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Spreadsheet Interface

You use a spreadsheet interface when dealing with multiple rows that share common columns and is targeted towards meeting the needs and features of the CX23-R.

The spreadsheet allows you to see many rows and columns at once and navigate using the keyboard or mouse. Spreadsheets can be read-only or editable. They can be filtered, sorted, and configured different ways.

This section documents features available when using certain spreadsheets. Some forms may impose restrictions or rules on what can and cannot be done within a spreadsheet. The topic is a general overview on how to interact with spreadsheets and what their behavior is. The spreadsheet interface is nothing more than a smart grid with intelligence built in relative to the context in which it is being used.

Anatomy of a spreadsheet

A spreadsheet (grids) consists of rows and columns. The intersection of rows and columns is a cell. A cell can contain any value that can be visually represented. This includes different rendering types such as text, combo boxes/lists, check boxes, or buttons. Regardless of what the contents of cells, the operations that can be performed on the spreadsheet is common.

Spreadsheets always have columns, which have column headings (titles). The headings are in a human readable form and subject to localization. The language chosen determines exactly what heading displays. The behavior and navigation will always be the same regardless of what the column names or titles.

There are no row numbers in spreadsheets. Usually all interaction is by column name and row selection. Since rows can be filtered or sorted, the row numbers will never remain the same. For these reasons, numbers are not shown.

To aid in the visualization of rows within a spreadsheet, they are zebra stripped. Odd positioned rows are a light blue color while even positioned rows are a darker blue. The mouse-over color of a row changes to gray when the mouse cursor hovers over a row (read-only). When you it becomes the current row and changes to a medium blue color. The only exception to these colors is when the row contains Diagnostic Messages during setup configuration.

Spreadsheets can be editable and read-only. Editable spreadsheets allow you to manually edit individual cells. Depending on the renderer used, and what rules are allowed for that cell, the interface for the edit may be slightly different. But, you can change the cell values.Editable spreadsheets can change their size dynamically. You can insert or delete rows.

Read-only spreadsheets generally are static in size and contents. You cannot edit these and generally you cannot add or delete rows.

For example:

Editable spreadsheet

Read-only spreadsheet

Spreadsheets are used when large volumes of similar structured rows are to be displayed and/or manipulated. They are used extensively in the CX23-R CX23‑R web interface to display rows for users, profiles, networks, and channels.

When a spreadsheet is initially rendered, it is organized in a predefined way as deemed appropriate for typical use cases. However, you can customize spreadsheets. Depending on what is organized and where it is organized, the customizations made may actually persist. This means that the next time the same spreadsheet is rendered, it remembers the last settings and honors them. For example, the Channel Setup interface spreadsheet remembers all customizations made.

For spreadsheets where you can perform row operations, a “selection” column is automatically inserted. This is usually the very first column. This column has no heading text, but does have a “Select All” check box to select all or none by toggling the header check box. This column cannot be hidden, sorted, resized, or filtered. It operates exactly the same way in all the places where it is defined.

Interaction with a spreadsheet

The following lists all customizations you can perform on a spreadsheet. Interactions happen at the row, column, or cell level.

 

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