Programming Communication with the User in Multiplatform Spreadsheet Applications.

It is quite common that the same person uses many different devices, depending on the situation: smartphones and tablets in the field, laptops in the office, switching between operating systems and Web-based applications. A spreadsheet user in this situation needs a multiplatform spreadsheet, one which will work equally well on all types of devices. The alternative of having many spreadsheets and copying data between them is clearly inferior, because it is a well-known source of errors. The topic we want to address in the present paper is programming the interaction with the user in a multiplatform spreadsheet, using only the core spreadsheet functionalities, which are implemented in the majority of spreadsheet systems. We report here on our experiences with creating the user interface of a multiplatform spreadsheet application for archaeologists working in the field.