24 releases · v1.0.34 current
Roadmap
What is being worked on, what is next, what is being thought about, and what has been decided against. Nothing here has a date on it — a one-person roadmap with dates is a promise broken in public.
Now
The work actually in hand.
The interface in other languages
The groundwork is in and a first slice of the interface is translated. The rest of the strings, a language picker in Settings, and the same sixteen languages Verso ships are what is left.
Undo everywhere, verified
Inserting and deleting rows and columns, clearing formatting and changing number formats are all undoable now — deleting a row used to be silent data loss. Paste-special, pivot refresh and replace-all are the last three being checked.
Selecting more than one block at a time
Cmd-click adds a second block to the selection, and formatting and deletion apply across all of them. Copying across non-contiguous blocks is intentionally not supported, because Excel does not allow it either.
Nothing lost on the round trip
A file saved by Nought and reopened in Excel keeps its merges, frozen panes, column widths, hyperlinks, page setup, images, tables, charts and validation, and since 1.0.31 its sheet protection, row grouping, subtotals, chart labels, trendlines, sparklines, data validation, auto-filters and conditional formatting thresholds too. 1.0.33 added the four ways a column width can be written, which Nought previously read only one of, and the flag that marks a sheet as right to left. Pivot tables are the one still to cover.
Next
Each of these is the missing half of something that already ships. Finishing what exists beats starting what does not, and it makes this list checkable against the app rather than aspirational.
A full VoiceOver pass
Every control and every dialog, checked with the screen reader rather than assumed. A spreadsheet is a grid of coordinates, which makes it either very good or very bad for VoiceOver, and it should be the first.
Filter buttons on table headers
Format as Table gives you a named table with banded rows that Excel reads natively. The per-table filter chevrons in the header row are the piece still missing; the sheet-wide AutoFilter already exists.
Manual page breaks
Page setup covers orientation, fit-to-width, print area, repeated title rows and gridlines. Putting a break exactly where you want one is the remaining gap.
A better start
The welcome screen and its three templates work, and since 1.0.33 opening a file you already have is the first thing on it rather than the last item under a heading about making a new one. More templates, and less to read before your first sheet, is what is left.
Later
Wanted and agreed, not started. No order implied within the list.
Sheets that run right to left
A workbook written in Hebrew, Arabic or Persian marks itself as right to left, and since 1.0.33 Nought reads that mark and writes it back rather than throwing it away. It does not yet lay the sheet out that way: column A stays on the left. Doing it properly means every coordinate in the grid, the headers, the frozen panes, the selection, the charts and the printed page moving together, and a half-mirrored sheet would be worse than an honest no.
Quick Look and Spotlight
Preview a spreadsheet from the Finder without opening it, and find one by its contents. Both need a separate app extension, which is why they are not a quick job.
Not planned
Things people reasonably ask for and will not get. This is the section that earns the other three: a roadmap where everything is eventually coming is not a roadmap, it is a wish.
Cloud sync, or an account
Nought has no network code in it at all — not disabled, absent. Your spreadsheets are files on your disk and that is the whole architecture. This is a deliberate limit rather than a missing feature.
Real-time collaboration
Two people editing one sheet at once needs a server, an account and a sync protocol, which is the previous entry three times over.
iPhone and iPad versions
Nought is a Mac app and will stay one, so the Mac version keeps the attention.
Macros or a plugin system
Extensibility adds surface area for bugs and a support burden to match. A smaller app that opens your files correctly is the better trade.
Recently shipped
The last three you can actually download. This list is generated from the release notes, so it cannot fall behind the app — and a build still in review does not appear in it.
1.0.34
Paste shows up the moment you paste, and the copy outline leaves when it should.
1.0.33
Three things Nought used to do silently, it now says out loud - and a spreadsheet made by a script keeps its formatting.
1.0.32
A CSV that took ten minutes to open now opens at once, and copied cells keep their accents.
All 24 releases, in full, on What’s new.
This order is not fixed. Something a reader actually needs beats something on the list, and several of the entries above arrived that way — tell me what is missing.