Taming the Infinite Canvas

We’re obsessed with making Subset’s spreadsheet feel endless, even when it doesn’t look like it is.

The spreadsheet was the original infinite canvas, and we want to preserve that feeling. But the Subset canvas can become cluttered by a big grid. Dealing with the spacing then breaks your flow, which is not a great experience.

We’ve been working on ways to handle the layout automatically, while still feeling endless, to keep you in flow. Below are some of the updates!

Preventing grids from overlapping

The beauty of Subset is that your data is separated into their own discrete blocks and you can see them all at once. This led to the natural problem of blocks colliding into one another when you increase the number of rows or columns. We’ve shipped a way to prevent them from overlapping.

Snap to grid

We hesitated to introduce a "snap to grid" on Subset, but after some overwhelming feedback, we decided to ship it. Now your grids snap to the canvas. This should make alignment of grids easier.

Other updates

• Defaulting to the editor on new file creation: We’ve received a bunch of good feedback on our preview mode, and now we no longer always default to preview. If you were creating a new file, the intent is be building, using the full the editor, and your editor view will reflect that.
• File manager open by default: As individuals and teams have been using Subset for more than just one file, having the file navigator be default open so you can switch from file to file in one click.