AXLE for XLSX

WARNING this is a work in progress.

AXLE takes a set of TSV files and allows you to edit them as XLSX spreadsheets.

For editing Google Sheets, try COGS Operates Google Sheets.

Setup

AXLE is not yet distributed. To install this package, clone the GitHub repository and run the installation from the new directory:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt
$ pip install -e .

To see a list of all commands:

axle help

Overview

Since AXLE is designed to synchronize a set of tables and an XLSX spreadsheet, we try to follow the familiar git interface and workflow:

• axle init creates an .axle directory to store configuration data and creates an XLSX spreadsheet for the project
• axle add foo.tsv starts tracking the foo.tsv table as a sheet
• axle rm foo.tsv stops tracking the foo.tsv table as a sheet
• axle push pushes changes to tables to the project spreadsheet
• axle fetch fetches the data from the spreadsheet and stores it in .axle/
• axle merge overwrites tables with the data from the spreadsheet
• axle pull combines fetch and merge

There is no step corresponding to git commit.

We recommend running axle push after updating a tracked table to keep the XLSX sheets in sync. When updating the XLSX spreadsheet, we recommend running axle pull to keep the tables in sync.

There are some other commands that do not correspond to any git actions:

• cogs apply applies attributes from standardized tables to one or more sheets

Logging

To print info-level logging messages (error and critical level messages are always printed), run any command with the -v/--verbose flag:

axle [command & opts] -v

Otherwise, most commands succeed silently.

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Commands

add

Running add will begin tracking a TSV or CSV table. The table details (path, name/title) get added to .axle/sheet.tsv. This does not immediately change the XLSX spreadsheet -- use axle push to push all tracked tables to the project spreadsheet.

axle add PATH [-t TITLE]

The -t/--title is optional. If not provided, the title of the sheet will be the base filename (e.g. tables/foo.tsv will be named foo).

You can also specify a number of rows and or columns to freeze:

axle add PATH -r FREEZE_ROW -c FREEZE_COLUMN

If you specify -r 2 -c 1, then the first two rows and the first column will be frozen once the sheet is pushed to the XLSX spreadsheet. If these options are not included, no rows or columns will be frozen.

Finally, you can add a full directory by just including the path of the directory. Note that the -t/--title option cannot be used when adding a directory, and sheet names will be created from the name of the file (extension removed).

apply

Running apply applies the details of one or more message tables to the spreadsheet as cell formatting and notes.

axle apply TABLE [TABLE ...]

clear

clear removes applied attributes (either from apply or manually added to the sheet remotely) from the sheets in a spreadsheet:

axle clear KEYWORD

The keyword must be one of:

• formats: sheet formatting
• notes: sheet notes
• all: formats and notes

After the keyword, you can supply zero or more sheet titles to remove attributes from.

If you wish to only remove attributes from certain sheets, you can do so with the -t/--title option:

axle clear KEYWORD [-t SHEET_TITLE ...]

fetch

Running fetch will sync the .axle/tracked/ directory with all spreadsheet changes.

axle fetch

This will write all sheets in the spreadsheet to that directory as {sheet-title}.tsv - this will overwrite the existing sheets in .axle/tracked/, but will not overwrite the versions specified by their path. If a new sheet has been added to the XLSX spreadsheet, this sheet will be added to .axle/sheet.tsv. To sync the local version of sheets with the data in .axle/, run axle merge.

init

Running init creates an .axle directory containing configuration data. This also creates a new XLSX file with the project title, if one does not already exist.

axle init TITLE

By default, the XLSX spreadsheet will be created as {title}.xlsx, where the title is lowercase with spaces replaced with underscores. You can specify a different path for the spreadsheet with the -p/--path option, but this must always end with .xlsx:

axle init TITLE -p PATH

If a spreadsheet already exists at the path, all existing sheets from that spreadsheet will automaticallyy be added to your project.

You can also specify a directory containing a set of tables (TSV/CSV) to start your project with using the -d/--directory option:

axle init TITLE -d DIRECTORY

Any new sheets that are added to the spreadsheet will be given a default format of TSV when running axle fetch or axle pull. If a directory has been specified, they will be saved to that directory. If you want to save new sheets as CSVs instead, just include -f csv/--format csv.

pull

Running pull will sync tables with sheets in the XLSX spreadsheet. This combines axle fetch and axle merge into one step.

axle pull

Note that if you make changes to a table without running axle push, then run axle pull, the changes will be overwritten.

push

Running push will sync the spreadsheet with your tables. This includes creating new sheets for any added tables (axle add) and deleting sheets for any removed tables (axle rm). Any changes to the tables are also pushed to the corresponding sheets.

axle push

merge

Running merge will sync tables with data in the .axle directory after running axle fetch.

axle pull

Note that if you make changes to a table without running axle push, then run axle fetch && axle merge, the changes will be overwritten.

rm

Running rm will stop tracking one or more tables. This will delete all copies of the included paths, unless you include the optional -k/--keep flag.

axle rm PATH [PATH...]

This does not delete the sheet(s) from the spreadsheet - use axle push to push all local changes to the XLSX spreadsheet.