Telecell
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A telecell (abbreviation TC) is an external spreadsheet cell reference. That is a cell in another spreadsheet (not worksheet).
It can refer to a cell in a shared public spreadsheet of a different name (or location) or a cell in a separate file (not the current open and active file) on the same computer or network. It may also refer to a cell in another open and active spreadsheet on the same computer or network that is defined as shareable (using appropriate software).
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[edit] Similar to reference to cell in another sheet in same workbook
A telecell is similat to, but differs from, a reference to a cell in a different sheet within the same spreadsheet which is usually addressed as:-
=SHEET2!A1 (that is; the first cell in sheet 2 of same spreadsheet).
- in this case, the cell contents are fetched and used during normal spreadsheet calculation.
[edit] external reference link
A telecell is similar to, but differs from External reference Link found in EXCEL spreadsheets:-
='C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My spreadsheets\[main sheet]Sheet1'!A1
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- (In this case, when the spreadsheet containing the cell reference is re-calculated, a dialogue is used to request update from the external spreadsheet which must be opened to retrieve the latest value.The external reference can address a web based file using a URL to an .XLS file).
[edit] shared public spreadsheet
An example of a telecell reference in EditGrid (which currently supports telecells in beta testing mode only at present).
http://www.editgrid.com/tnc/cliff/Real-time_Portfolio_Valuation/Sheet1!D7
In this example "http://www.editgrid.com/tnc/cliff/Real-time_Portfolio_Valuation" is the external URL that identifies the spreadsheet on EditGrid's website where it is held. The file may reside on the users own hard disk or server in some future implementaion. The external spreadsheet need not be opened (manually) on the users workstation although the application itself would need to open the spreadsheet file itself to extract the contents of the cell(s).
[edit] reference to "non-active" spreadsheets
A telecell may even theoretically refer to a cell in a spreadsheet that is not currently open for any particular user (In this instance, the spreadsheet's temporary use and any consequent "other cell" alterations would constitute a "single incidence" where effected cells would not be saved after use. In this sense the external spreadsheet would perform the service equivalent to a remote pocket calculator utilizing its "last" memory of cell contents except where it incorporated its own telecells.
[edit] future
It is not known whether there are any current implementations that provide this feature but it can be anticipated that there will be such features in the future.
