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the tally guide : quickstart

The intention of this quickstart is to acquaint you with almost everything you'd need to know to run tally (it isnt that complex). The exception is expressions, which will be discussed in depth in the next section of this guide.

Quitting

You already know how to start tally, but knowing how to exit is also helpful. To quit the program type Q. If you have unsaved changes you will be asked if you are sure you want to exit.

Editing

When starting a new sheet from scratch the workbook will have one sheet with one cell (A1). As you move around, more rows and columns will be added as they are needed.

If you load an existing tss, csv, or tsv file then thenumber of rows and columns, along with their values, will be present in the sheet shown by tally.

Moving Around

tally uses keybindings similar to the vi text editor. To move around you can use:

• h, j, k, l: Left, Down, Up, Right
• ^, $: Move to the first or last column in the current row
• g, G: Move to the first or last row in the current column

Moving around will change the way the table highlights work to show you what cell you currently have selected.

Entering Data

You can enter data into cells in a few different ways. Cells accept the following types of values:

• number: Positive, negative, integer, or decimal. Internally tally thinks of all numbers as decimals
• text: A string of characters. All strings must be surrounded by double quotes, "like so"
• expression: Any combination of the above two types, as well as operators (such as + or MIN) and references to cells (column then row: C12)

To enter data into a cell you can press the enter or space key. If you are going to be entering text into the cell, there is a shortcut that allows you to enter the text without needing to quote it (the quoting will be done for you): press the " key.

If tally understood what you entered you will see a value. If it did not, or there is a problem with your expression, you will see #Err, often with a message explaining the nature of the error.

If a cell contains text representing a URL, tally can attempt to open the URL in the default browser for the given protocol (as registered with your system). To do this, select a cell with a URL as its text data and press O. Some caveats: this will only work when using a graphical environment (this usually means an X or Wayland session). This should generally be the case for OSX and Windows users, but may not always be the case for Linux or BSD users (where console or ssh sessions are more common). Additionally, this will only work if the protocol (http, https, gopher, telnet, finger, etc) in question is registered with your system to have a default (this is generally set up automatically for the web protocols: http and https). If O is pressed while a cell that does not contain a URL is selected there is no effect and no messaging of any issue.

Deleting Data

To delete the contents of a cell, that is - to revert it to an empty state, press d.

Yank / Paste

You can yank/copy a cell with y.

To paste a cell you have two options. The difference between these options is how they deal with cell references in expressions:

Pressing p will paste the cell and will not change any references from when it was copied.

Pressing P will update the cell references to be relative. In this case that means they will change based on the distance (in rows and columns) between where they were copied from and where they are being pasted. This allows for dynamic expressions that can be moved around a sheet conveniently. Row and column locking can be used to affect what values are updated by a relative paste. More on that in the section on expressions.

Cell Modifiers

You can change the appearance of a cell through the use of modifiers. All modifiers work as toggles, so turning on and off is done with the same key. The available modifiers and their keys are:

• b: Bold
• f: Faint/dim; has no effect if the cell is bold
• u: Underline
• i: Italics

Zoom

You can zoom in or out with the + and - keys. This has the effect of controlling how many columns you see on the screen at a given time. At present all columns have the same width.

Commands

In addition to the editing keys, there are a few commands that can be issued. To enter command mode press : and then enter your command.

The following commands are available:

• write or w: Will write the current spreadsheet to a tally file (.tss). If no filepath is passed (write ~/my-file.tss) tally will save the current file, using a default name and the execution directory if necessary (ie. if tally was run without a file and no path has yet been passed to write)
• write-csv or wc: Will write the current spreadsheet to a csv file. If no filepath is passed tally will save to the current file path, but with the file type .csv
• write-tsv or wt: Will write the current spreadsheet to a csv file. If no filepath is passed tally will save to the current file path, but with the file type .tsv
• trim: Removes empty rows/columns at the end of the file. It does this recursively starting with the bottom-most row and right-most column until it encounters a row or column (each working independently) with data in it
• recalculate: Forces a recalculation of the entire sheet. This should generally not be needed, but is avialable should you encounter the need

Wrap Up

That should be enough to get you started storing data in tally. Try entering numbers and text into some cells to get a feel for it. Copy them around and delete them. Move about the sheet. When you have a good feel for things move on to the next section to learn how to make your tally spreadsheets more dynamic by using expressions.