The Ultimate TSTO Spreadsheet

muleheadjoe wrote:

Arlandria606 wrote:

muleheadjoe wrote:

Arlandria606 wrote:
Thanks for letting me know :) The sheets are protected so that you can't accidentally mess up the calculations. I've updated it with a wider column, hopefully that sorts it out.

Whilst I understand the desire to protect your formulae, it's kind of annoying :-)

Clearly I protected it for a reason, and it wasn't to just "protect my formulae". It's kinda rude of you to just go ahead and decide to tell everyone else to unprotect it.

If you find my spreadsheet annoying, you're more than welcome to make your own.

Your response makes me sad :-(

... I still don't see why you "protected" the worksheets in the first place ... I mean, if it was something really important, you could have password protected your workbook, but you didn't, and that kinda indicated to me that it probably wasn't a matter of national security.

It's a spreadsheet, pally, not state secrets. I cannot imagine any reason to lock it. What are people going to do, replace your formulae with bogus math, repost the file somewhere and then insult you claiming you gave them bogus free home-made data that anybody could have made if they wanted to spend the time working on it?

I unlocked the sheets because your format did not display correctly on my computer. I downloaded your workbook *after* someone else already complained about formatting / column sizing, and you stated you fixed it and reposted your w/b. I cannot even begin to imagine why anyone would (a) want to lock the workbook in the first place, and (b) get all bent out of shape if someone does unlock it.

As far as 'making my own spreadsheet' ... I did. I build spreadsheets in the normal course of a day, for all kinds of things. I saw your post, and because I like spreadsheets, I downloaded your s/s, saw that it contained more information than mine and liked it ... except for the part where columns were sized so that I got rows of octothorpes instead of numbers, and then I couldn't resize the columns because you locked the worksheets which was really really really annoying.

Your response to me letting non-excel savvy people know how to unlock the worksheets strikes me as odd.

Why would you lock the worksheets? Why would you be against letting people reformat the worksheets? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? It just doesn't make any sense! I'm going to go cry in my bowl of cheerios now.

The fact that you don't understand my reasons does not invalidate them.

I protected it so that novice users wouldn't be able to change it, break it, then pester me for help fixing it or retrieving their work. I don't have the time nor desire to do that. I enjoy making spreadsheets, not teaching others how to do so.

I didn't put a password on it so that more advanced users such as yourself could make changes if they wanted to.

I don't care if you want to unprotect it and change it. Knock yourself out. But don't go around telling everyone else not only how to do it, but that they should do it, implying that I've committed some big spreadsheeting no-no in protecting it in the first place. That causes potential problems for me that I took steps to avoid, and that is why I'm unhappy with what you posted.

Now, if you don't mind, this thread was supposed to share and improve something that people could enjoy using, not start a war about spreadsheet design. If you want to point out actual errors/omissions or suggest improvements, great. If you want to whine about me not doing it "your way", go talk to your Cheerios.