Metagrid is not a smaller Excel. It is a nested workbook: every value lives in a structure, and structures nest. Features earn their place only if they strengthen that model. Special cases that fight the tree get cut or rewritten.
We are in alpha. There is no backwards-compatibility tax. The current language and file shape are the language and file shape.
- One way to climb — leading dots for parent paths. Escape to the file root with the file name (
Untitled.Spend), not a Sheet layer. - One way to name — headers, list indexes, and defined names. Rename updates formulas.
- One way to edit a formula — F2 = cursor. Arrows = point (always re-homed at the formula cell). Tab accepts a function suggestion; Enter always commits.
- Small language — arithmetic, power, comparisons, a fixed function table.
- Honest import — One Excel sheet becomes that grid (or table) named after the file. Several sheets become a Dictionary of those names. A sheet becomes a table only when it is purely tabular and formulas are calculated columns with table-safe refs — never A1 pins that Metagrid tables can’t express.