Batch Convert .xls To .sc

[danboid]

In my eternal quest for the snappiest user experience possible under pdaXrom I'm looking for a lightweight ss replacement for gnumeric. However, it seems none of the skinny Linux ss apps can load .xls files so some conversion will most likely be necessary.

Both kkazakov13 and myself tried compiling Abacus but its too old to compile. After that I tried Teapot but soon discovered it only READS .wk1 (Lotus-123) files but saves in some custom format that likely nothing else can read.

The known remaining chances are (we'll get to my question in a sec, honest!

1- xxl

http://www.esinsa.unice.fr/xxl.html

Unfortunately this depends upon the STk library which I couldn't get to compile. xxl loads and saves .slk files which are supported by all the major ss apps. Maybe somebody else would like to try compiling this? This could be out best bet for a lightweight GUI ss app under pdaX.

2- ABS Spreadsheet

This might be an option if I could find the source! Apparently this used to be the ss app used by Puppy Linux so I've wrote to the Puppy devs seeing if they still have a copy.

3- slsc, flspead and other sc-based ss apps

Both these apps, like xspread, are based upon spreadsheet calc or 'sc' as its known.

As far as I can tell though, sc/slsc/flspread/xspread can't load anything other than its native file format so I was wondering if anyone had ever heard of an app that can convert (simple) xls files into .sc files? I'd need to convert a fair few y'see before I could consider option #3.

[kkazakov13]

Can't download XXL from ftp://elec.polytech.unice.fr/pub/xxl-2.1.2.tar.gz ...

[danboid]

Hi kk!

In fact, do send me your teapot package please. It turns out that teapot, gnumeric and OOo calc can all load and save in good ol' csv format so I'm going to give teapot a try.

I've attached the source to xxl to this posting. Unless somebody uncovers the source to the ABS spreadsheet this is pretty much our last hope of getting an alternate GUI ss for pdaX.

EDIT

Come to think of it now, I'd imagine (although its just a guess) that .csv files wouldn't retain any formulas, they'd just transfer the static numerical values of cells- anyone know?

[kkazakov13]

Sorry, I've deleted teapot files ... just use the binary I sent you.

[kkazakov13]

http://home.pi.be/bertin/abs-src-0908.tar.gz

this should be abs's latest src. I think this tool is outdated too. I still didn't succeeded compiling XXL.

[Chero]

The link above doesn't work, so
is the attached what you're looking for ?

edit :
or
http://kimsakkat.free.fr/abs/

Chero.

[danboid]

Hi kkazakov!

Unfortunately there was no attachment on the message you sent where you said you'd attached teapot

Chero:

You attached an older version of ABS but that link you posted does have (what I believe to be) the latest version so thanks very much for that! If nobody else has given it a go already I'll try compiling that tonight- kkaza?

[kkazakov13]

I don't know if it's "older" than some other ... I think there's no newer.


About the teapot ... I've attached it, don't know what happened there. Sorry, I've deleted it  will not have time to compile it again these days. But if you want to try again, just replace lcurses with lncurses in Makefile before try to compile. This is how it worked with me.

[kkazakov13]

Found teapot binary in one of my dirs  enjoy

p.p. rename it to 'teapot'

[danboid]

Thanks kk!

I did actually get teapot and ABS to compile last night. teapot wasn't compiling originally for me because I forgot to comment out the NetBSD default flags. However, teapot turns out to be useless to me as it doesn't have a find/search for string feature. Duh!  

This project has pretty much come to and end now though as I've got gnumeric to load in a respectable 7s instead of the beard-growing 35s it used to be just by uninstalling scim. In fact, many X apps load faster now without scim installed. Excellent 'upgrade'! Although I'm still quite interested in giving siag another go but compiling it with the curses interface to see if it can beat gnumeric.

MORE SPEED!