yxl — the grid beside the spec
A spreadsheet grid for yxl specs. Open a
*.yxl.yaml and this draws it as a sheet next to its text, redrawing as you
type; edit the grid and the YAML changes — in the smallest diff that says
what you did, with your comments, key order and quoting intact.
What it does
- Draws the spec as a sheet. Values, formulas and every look a style
declares; merges, bands, an outline, frozen panes, conditional formatting,
filters, notes, links, validations and tables; and what sits on a sheet —
charts, images, shapes and sparklines — drawn where they sit and at the size
they take.
- Computes for display. Some 500 Excel functions,
#DIV/0! and the rest of
Excel's error text included. A formula naming something this does not model is
not computed at all and says so: a number that is not the workbook's number
is worse than no number. Nothing computed is ever written back.
- Edits, where the answer is one thing. Type into a cell, apply a look from
the toolbar, insert and delete rows and columns, merge, fill, sort, size a
column, hide a run, rename a sheet — and the YAML changes.
- Refuses the rest out loud, and offers the answers it has. A cell whose
value comes from a definition, a CSV, a parameter or a
formulas: range has
more than one meaning or none. It says so before you type, and when you type
anyway it lists what each answer would change — change the range's formula,
which moves 40 cells, or split the range — with the count beside it. You
pick; nothing is picked for you.
- Tidies the spec, where that provably changes nothing. A look written out
in full at three places or more becomes one
defs.styles entry you name;
definitions that resolve alike become one, and you pick which name survives; a
column of cells each translating one formula becomes the formulas: range
that fills them. Every one of them is refused automatically if it would
change a single rendered cell, and none of them is applied silently — you
see the diff first.
- Reads in English and 日本語, following VS Code's own display language.
What you need
The yxl compiler, on your PATH or named by the yxl.path setting. It is
required rather than bundled: it is what builds the workbook, and you likely
have it already.
This release targets yxl 0.3.6. An older or a newer compiler is a warning
rather than a refusal — a spec written here is ordinary yxl — but the schema is
not frozen until yxl's v1.0, so the pinned version is the one this was tested
against.
Getting started
- New File… → A yxl Spec: an Empty Workbook — or right-click a folder.
This runs
yxl init, so the starter is the compiler's, not this editor's.
- Open any
*.yxl.yaml and press the grid button in the editor's title bar,
or run yxl: Open the Grid Beside the Spec.
- Build and Check sit beside it, on both the text and the grid.
- yxl: Gather Repeated Looks into a Definition reads the whole spec and
offers what it can tidy without changing the workbook.
What it is not
A spreadsheet application with a YAML export. That is a different product, and
the difference decides every call here: the text is the truth, and the grid is
the projection. If you are editing a workbook in Excel and want the spec to
follow, this is not the tool — yxl extract is the one-way bridge.
It is also not a renderer: Excel opens the result. yxl build produces the
.xlsx; this extension never writes one.
The gestures it does not have yet are listed as plainly as the ones it does, in
the repository's ROADMAP.md.
What it collects
Nothing. No telemetry, no analytics, no network request of its own. It reads the
files your spec names and runs the yxl you point it at, and that is all.
Licence
Apache-2.0, matching yxl.
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