A feature I would like to see in Office 2010 (Excel)

It just occurred to me how incredibly useful it would be for me if I could drag & drop files into excel to have them copy in as text only from the file name.

I tried it and it tried to open the file, so say a .AAC file just opened up in pure computer code gibberish.

So I tried to copy/paste and that wont work ether.

Reason is how many of you do a lot of work with a large amount of files and need a way to keep track of status?

Some real life applications I need to use it for that I have to manually type the file names:

> Editing my music collection to have proper tags embedded for artist/album/...

> Encoding a video file from fraps that uses many small clips spliced together and I want to keep record of what clips I used in what video so I know where I left off.

stuff like that, and keeping an organized list on excel would be awesome and allow me to do a lot more than just track status. Say the fraps clips I could record the length of each segment on the speadsheet so I make sure I do not go past the 10 minute mark for a youtube video.

The copy/paste function could be further improved to not only just past the text only file name but also say a link to the current file location so you can open or navigate to the file from the spreadsheet.

Honestly I am kinda surprised to see I thought of an idea that is not already implemented, you guys think its a good idea?

Also since I may as well suggest it, where is the best place to do that?

Im already thinking cool things like a plugin so that it can recognize data from video and audio files and paste in data like the bitrate/size/length/codec/... and paste that into designated columns if you opt for it

 

I personally would prefer to use tools made for this job (like f.e. itunes, which i use with big success).

but the idea in general is interesting. similar to now the paste-preview works, there could be a drop-preview which shows then the -data of the files, as a choosable option

 

yuk itunes

but itunes wont give me the vast excel options like I want so many things I could do with formulas and stuff. I think you missed the point though it was not to tell me file size, bitrate, etc like a standard program could, its to give me the file names so I can use excel for data entry stuff.

Toss things in a table so you can auto sort them by date, so you can organize things by the date you encoded them or by the date you added them to your collection to encoded so you can track your progress, use simple formulas to say add up file length times to check combined file times. Stuff like that.

 

well, itunes gives me about all of that info (more or less, i'm not 100% about every thing you noted).

BUT i still agree, it would be a very interesting feature, even while i would never use it for music, i could consider it for other, more general file management tasks. i would never use (better abuse) excel for a database, though.. never. that's what access is for

excel for me is sort of a onenote database. like onenote to word, is excel to access. a scratchpad

but i like your idea anyways. it's sort of an idea in the form of "pc's should make my life easy so why doesn't this work?!!?!" ideas. always strange, out of nowhere, but always great.

 

hmmm. I want my friggin File menu back! ah! I HATE the ribbon.

 

get used to it. it's based on good design decisions, so getting used to it will, in the end, give you much gain.

 

I agree, it gets rid of the mixing of UI designs and makes for a more consistent interface. Consistency in any UI is key as humans are creatures of habit.

@USMC; haven't you considered sending your recommendation to Microsoft? They have some smiley program that you can use (start > 'smiley') to send them quick feedback.