We explore the idea of adding bidirectionality to spreadsheet formulas, so that editing the output can directly affect the input.<\/p>\n
We introduce portals: a portal is a value paired with its where-provenance, that is, one or more links to its origin.<\/p>\n
When a portal is the result of a formula in a cell, that cell inherits the capability to edit the locations described by the provenance of the portal.<\/p>\n
The simplicity of portals makes them amenable to implementation in an existing spreadsheet system. We analyse the list of functions provided by a widely-used commercial spreadsheet system and find that many frequently used functions work with portals with no modification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We explore the idea of adding bidirectionality to spreadsheet formulas, so that editing the output can directly affect the input. We introduce portals: a portal is a value paired with its where-provenance, that is, one or more links to its origin. 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