[Solved] Another strange question - cell "list" ?

[Teevo42]

Hi again. I tried researching this but I don't think I'm using the right terminology, so I'm not finding what I need.

- I would like to be able to have data in one cell... in this case, it would be the name of a sports card, lets call it "Michael Jordan Rookie Card"
- And I was hoping there is a way to be able to click on that cell, then pull up a list of data.. lets say the last 10 sales on ebay
- But I want to be able to separate the extra data by columns; such as having a column for price, date, and grade

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to accomplish what I want to achieve?

[robleyd]

From where does your "list of data" come? Is it in another spreadsheet, another sheet in the same spreadsheet, or some other source???

It is possible that inserting the card name as a hyperlink with the link to the source of your"list of data" might be a solution; but that depends on the exact details.

[Teevo42]

I would input the info myself into that spreadsheet.

I've attached a screenshot so you can see what I want to condense.
- I want to be able to have all that data in one cell, and be able to click it and see it all sorted by column.

Reason being is I have alot of cards I want to keep track of, so I am trying to condense it. Does that make sense?

[Teevo42]

Oops, heres the screenshot for visual reference..
I want to be able to click on the highlighted cell and see all those sales (with the extra column data of pricing, sale date, and grade)

[Teevo42]

I just thought of something though.. I want to be able to *sort* the data at my leisure. Like one day maybe I want to view it in order by price, but the next day I want to view it by most recent sale date to oldest (I know how to use the "Sort" ability, I'm just saying.. I want to be able to do that, so maybe that will affect how we implement what I want to do in terms on condensing).

[RusselB]

While Calc (or a decent spreadsheet) might be able to handle this for a limited number of cards (I'm thinking under 5,000), you're going to find that the time to get the information to appear is going to increase dramatically (not sure if it would be geometrically, exponentially, or some combination).
NB: My reference to 5,000 cards is based on what you showed in your screenshot as 10 cards, rather than you thinking that would be 1 card as it only has one name.
As you seem to still be at the start point of doing this, I'm going to recommend that you take it straight to Base (OpenOffice's database front end).
I suspect the time spent now learning how to do a database properly will be well worthwhile, rather than spending a lot of time doing this in a spreadsheet, and then finding that you still need to get it into a database due to timing or space limitations.

[Teevo42]

Can you explain what you exactly mean when you say "take it to Base"? Do you mean another forum, or..? And for what its worth, I would definitely be under 5000.

[robleyd]

I'm going to recommend that you take it straight to Base (OpenOffice's database front end).

https://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html

In simple terms, RusselB says a database, not a spreadsheet, is the correct tool for the type of work you want to do. I agree, although I suspect the learning curve may be steep.

[Teevo42]

I'm a great learner if someone can help. But based on a few prior responses, I will assume no one wants to take me under their wing.

I am willing to try by myself but there are 20+ tutorials, can you tell me which one applies to what I want to do? I'm just not familiar with the language.

[robleyd]

There isn't likely to be a tutorial that does "what you want to do"; we don't even know that - we know one thing you want to do with a certain subset of the information you are collecting.

You will need to plan what you want to do and hence how much information you will need to collect before you actually start to put things together. Perhaps a little reading on introduction to database design might be in order to start with. As I said, the learning curve is steep.

[Teevo42]

I found a basic tutorial that uses an example that I can substitute my data with. I will try to follow it after work. I read through the first few parts, doesn't seem too confusing at this point. I will post an update later on my status and any questions.

[RusselB]

If you do have questions after going through the tutorial, please make sure you post in the section of the forum meant for questions regarding Base.