Pranav
e1a12fa337
* UI: theme tokens for icon, reference and sheet-control colours; WCAG contrast test
Tokens gains the colours the chrome was hard-coding, each with a light
and a dark value: on_accent (text on an accent fill), an eight-colour
category palette (theme::Cat), the paper colour inside icons, reference
colours for the formula bar and for the sheet, the message box warning
disc, the tab bar scroll thumb, and sheet_control_* colours that follow
the sheet and so stay light in both themes.
What now comes from the tokens:
- icons: paper (white pages glared in dark mode) and the accent
constants; icons placed on the sheet use icons::paint_on_sheet, which
keeps the light colours;
- reference colours (editor::REF_COLORS), which were hard to read on the
dark formula field;
- white text on the accent in OK, Solve, slicer tiles and the AutoSave
switch, 2:1 on the dark accent;
- the comments pane (a white card with light text in dark mode), gallery
hover and swatch outlines, the message box disc, the tab bar thumb,
chart selection frames, and the sheet's filter and validation buttons.
A unit test (theme::contrast_tests) checks every token pair used by the
ribbon, popups, dialogs, panes, formula bar, status bar and sheet in
both themes against WCAG 2: 4.5:1 for text and 3:1 for glyphs. It caught
the dark danger red (3.5:1 on hover) and the selected header text (4.1:1
light), which are adjusted.
* UI: ribbon scroll arrows, large split button for Formulas › AutoSum
- widgets::big_split_button: the icon runs the default action, the
label and its arrow open the menu. It returns both responses, with
accessible names ("AutoSum" and "AutoSum options"). big_button shares
its label layout.
- Formulas › AutoSum uses it: the icon inserts SUM as before, and the
arrow, which used to do the same, opens the Sum / Average / Count /
Max / Min / More Functions menu that Home › AutoSum already had
(shared as autosum_menu). Its keytip is unchanged.
- When a tab's groups are wider than the window, arrows at the card's
edges scroll them; before, only the mouse wheel did and nothing showed
that the tab went on. ribbon::RibbonOverflow records the groups' and
the card's sizes each frame.
- A test checks every tab fits the card's three rows. It found View ›
Show stacking four checkboxes, with Headings cut off; Show is now two
columns (Ruler, Gridlines / Formula Bar, Headings).
Tests: tests/ribbon_layout.rs (the split button's two parts, AutoSum's
icon and menu, the scroll arrows, the card height).
* UI: formula bar grows from one to five lines; code editor widget
The formula bar is a top-aligned row: the Name Box and the cancel,
enter and fx buttons stay on the first line while the field grows. Its
height is the content's laid-out line count (Alt+Enter or wrapped text)
times the font's row height, from one line (30 px, as before) to five,
then the field scrolls with the caret in view. This holds while editing
and while viewing a cell. The height eases over 120 ms when the line
count changes, and the chevron pins it at five lines (it used to give a
fixed 72 px). The in-cell editor likewise stops at five lines and
scrolls. formula_bar::BarLayout records where the parts went, for tests.
widgets::code_editor(ui, id, &mut text, Lang, max_lines) is a small
code editor for features that edit code: the monospace font, syntax
colours from Tokens::syntax (new, with light and dark values in the
contrast test) for Python (keywords, strings including triple-quoted
ones, numbers, comments and builtins) and LaTeX (commands, scripts and
comments), Tab inserting four spaces (or indenting every selected line,
Shift+Tab dedenting), Enter keeping the line's indentation (one level
more after a Python colon), and a scroll area that follows the caret.
The tokenizer and the edits are pure functions with tests, including
hostile input that must keep spans on char boundaries.
kittest (tests/formula_bar.rs) covers Alt+Enter up to eight lines with
the Name Box and buttons fixed and the caret visible, the commit,
viewing the committed cell, the chevron, the ease, the in-cell cap and
the code editor's Tab and Enter.
* UI: Shift+Tab in the code editor dedents instead of indenting
The editor consumed plain Tab before Shift+Tab, and egui's key match ignores Shift
when the pattern lacks it, so a Shift+Tab was taken as Tab and indented the line.
Shift+Tab is now consumed first; a plain Tab still inserts spaces.
* UI: the ribbon card stays inside a narrow window, so its right scroll arrow is on screen
The row above the ribbon can be wider than a narrow window, and the card took that width, so the
right scroll arrow was drawn past the window's edge and couldn't be clicked: below about 640 px on
macOS, and at 700 px with Linux's wider default fonts, where CI's ribbon test failed. The card is
now kept within the window with the same margin it has on the left.
* UI: each ribbon tab keeps a scroll offset of its own
The ribbon's scroll area used one identity for every tab, so scrolling an overflowing tab and
switching to another overflowing one hid that tab's first groups. Each tab now has its own scroll
state: a tab opened after another was scrolled starts at its left edge, and a tab keeps its offset
while others are used.
* UI: the in-cell editor keeps its whole width for the text and shows every line
Merged with main, the grid's own test asked the in-cell editor to wrap its
text at the field's full width and to show every line (the editor never
scrolls); the editor widget wrapped it inside the formula bar's scroll area,
which took the bar's width off the text (168 px tall where 156 was right),
and the grid capped it at five lines. The in-cell editor now shows the text
field on its own, through the one show_edit helper the formula bar also
uses, and grows with every line; the formula bar keeps its five lines and
its caret scroll. The branch's five-line test for the cell editor becomes a
grows-with-every-line test.
* Docs: the UI building blocks' revision rows carry the date they land
The rows said 2026-10-11, older than upstream rows above them, and the
ui-parity row said the in-cell editor is capped at five lines.
* UI: the formula bar's view of a cell starts at the cell's top
The bar's read-only view kept one scroll offset for every cell, so a cell
shown after scrolling another's text started scrolled. The offset is kept
per cell now.
* UI: the editor's field does nothing with Enter on its own
The editor handles Enter (commit) and Alt+Enter (a line break) itself, and a
message box over the editor takes Enter to close. The field under it is a
multi-line TextEdit since the bar grew, whose own return key would add a
line if it ever saw Enter; return_key(None) keeps that from depending on
where focus sits. A test shows Enter over a message box adds nothing to the
entry (focus is off the field then, so it passed before too: this is
hardening, not a repair). The doc comment split by the show_edit helper is
mended.
* Docs: ui-parity says the in-cell editor shows every line, and its revision table is whole
A sentence still said the in-cell editor stops at five lines, and a blank
line between the table's separator and its first row ended the table.
* UI: the split button's tooltip carries the shortcut hint like every ribbon button's
big_split_button built its tooltip with the bare translation, so AutoSum,
which became a split button, lost its shortcut hint. It uses tip_text now;
the split-button test hovers the button and looks for the hint.
* UI: a selection that ends at the start of a line leaves that line alone
Selecting "a\n" in "a\nb" and pressing Tab also indented b, and Shift+Tab
could take its indentation: the line after the selection was counted as
touched. It is touched only when the selection reaches into it.
* UI: the code editor applies its keys in input order, with the typing around them
The editor consumed Enter, Tab and Shift+Tab before the text field saw the
frame's events, so a frame carrying typed text followed by Enter (events
gather between repaints, and under key repeat) put the newline before the
text, and two Enters in one frame made one line. The editor now walks the
frame's events in order and applies typed text, pastes, Enter, Tab,
Shift+Tab, Backspace and Delete itself, taking them from the queue; the
first event it does not handle and everything after it stay for the field,
which runs next, so the order holds either way.
* UI: the code editor keeps the input order past the keys the text field handles
The editor applied its keys up to the first event it did not handle and
left that event and everything after it to the text field, which has
its own Tab and Enter: select all followed by Tab in one frame replaced
the code with a tab character, and since the platform sends a key event
before each text event, an Enter after ordinary typing lost its
indentation.
The editor now applies its keys up to the first event the field acts on
(a caret or selection key, a key under a command modifier, IME, a click);
that event and the run after it stay for the field; from the editor's
next key on, the keyboard events are held back under the editor's id for
its next pass, where it puts them ahead of that pass's input and splits
again. They go only to the editor they were typed into, only while it
still has the focus, and only in the pass right after; otherwise they
are dropped rather than typed into another widget. Printable key presses
do not split the stream. Tab under a command or option modifier is taken
off the queue, and Enter under Shift or Option is the editor's newline,
so the field never gets a Tab or an Enter of a focused editor.
* UI: the ribbon layout and formula bar tests join the crate's integration test binary
Since #2372 the crate's integration tests are one binary built from tests/it/, one module per file; only tests that set process-wide state stay separate. These two set none.
* UI: the formula bar's one-line height follows the font, so five lines fit on Windows
One line was a fixed 30 px and the bar grew by one row height per line.
The panel's and the field's margins take 12 px of that, and rounding to
the pixel grid up to another, so a row taller than 17 px lost the last
counted line: with the Windows UI font (17.28 px rows) five lines showed
four, and bar_grows_to_five_lines_then_scrolls_with_name_box_pinned
failed there.
formula_bar::one_line(row_h) is 30 px unless the rows need more, and
every counted line fits whatever the font. The kittest heights are
computed from it rather than from 30, and a unit test checks the
arithmetic for rows of 15.6 to 20 px.
* UI: Paste Special's OK button uses the on-accent colour
It was the one OK button still drawn white on the accent: 2.14:1 in the dark theme, where every other OK uses on_accent (7.1:1).
GridCraft
Spreadsheets and data; an open-source, high-performance modern spreadsheet application, built in pure Rust.
A fast, open-source, clean-room take on modern spreadsheet workflows. It runs natively on macOS,
Windows, Linux and BSD, and in the browser via WebAssembly.
By the ArtCraft team.
GridCraft on getartcraft.com · ArtCraft · All Crafting Apps
Quarterly Sales Dashboard: a table with a totals row, conditional formatting, sparklines and two live charts — built entirely from GridCraft commands (File → New → Sample).
Note
ArtCraft is a community of artists from all walks of life. Painters, photographers, filmmakers, illustrators, designers, animators, hobbyists, and people who picked up a pencil last week. If you make things, you're one of us. Come say hi on Discord.
A look around · Why GridCraft · Quick start · For agents · Architecture · Roadmap · The Crafting Apps · License and credits
A look around
 Formatting. Accounting formats, cell styles, conditional rules and colour scales, frozen headers and a bar chart. |
 Formulas. 500+ functions, dynamic arrays, LET and LAMBDA, structured table references. |
 Dark mode and the Insert tab: tables, charts, sparklines, pictures, shapes, links and comments. |
 Pivot tables. Field list, filters, layouts, date grouping and show-values-as, saved to and read from XLSX. |
 Charts. Seventeen chart types, Chart Design tab and a Format pane; selecting a chart outlines its source data. |
 Page Break Preview, print settings, and PDF export and printing. |
Why GridCraft
- Familiar. Ribbon, formula bar, Name Box, sheet tabs, keyboard shortcuts, fill handle, point-mode formula entry with coloured references, Format Cells, Paste Special, conditional formatting, tables, charts and more. Everything is right where you expect it.
- Compatible. XLSX is the native format: styles, themes, formulas (including dynamic arrays),
tables, conditional formats, validation, comments, hyperlinks, charts, pictures, sparklines,
pivot tables and print settings round-trip. CSV and TSV too.
Legacy 97-2003
.xlsworkbooks open with their values, formulas and number formats (formatting and objects not yet). XLSB worksheet data can be imported, using saved values instead of formulas. ODS worksheet data can be imported, using saved values instead of formulas. Static pictures can live inside cells, fitting their size and moving with the data. - Capable. A dependency-graph calculation engine with dynamic arrays and spilling, 500+ worksheet functions plus LET, LAMBDA, MAP, REDUCE, SCAN, BYROW, BYCOL and MAKEARRAY, structured table references, a comprehensive number-format language, sort and AutoFilter, Flash Fill, data validation, outlining and subtotals.
- Fast. Copy-on-write workbooks (undo snapshots are nearly free), incremental recalculation, and a virtualised grid that only lays out what's on screen.
- Agent-native. Every ribbon button, menu item, dialog, keystroke and mouse gesture is a command that agents can run over a JSON control channel, an MCP server, or the CLI.
- Everywhere. One Rust codebase for desktop and the web. No subscription, no licence server, no telemetry.
Quick start
cargo run --release -p gridcraft # desktop app
cargo run --release -p gridcraft -- --sample sales # open a sample (sales, budget, grades)
cargo run --release -p gridcraft -- book.xlsx # open a workbook
cargo run --release -p gridcraft -- --sample sales --control 7979 # + JSON control channel
cargo xtask ci # fmt, clippy, tests, assets, layering, wasm
Choose Español under View → Interface language for Spanish formula names, decimal commas, and semicolon arguments. Workbooks, clipboard exchange, and programmatic APIs retain canonical English syntax.
Web
cd apps/gridcraft-web && trunk build --release # → dist/web (serve it with any static server)
cd apps/gridcraft-web && trunk serve --release # http://127.0.0.1:8771 (?sample=sales opens a sample)
You need trunk and the wasm32-unknown-unknown target. Open uses the
browser's file picker (dropping files works too) and Save downloads the workbook.
Ribbon access keys
Press and release left Alt on Windows/Linux/BSD, or press F10 on any platform, then type a sequence below one key at a time. Keytips appear on the supported Home controls and menu items. On macOS, use F10 (Fn+F10 if required by your keyboard); Option remains available for entering accented characters.
| Sequence after Alt/F10 | Action |
|---|---|
H A L / H A C / H A R |
Align left / center / right |
H V S or legacy E S |
Open Paste Special |
H O I or legacy O C A |
AutoFit selected columns |
In Paste Special, T/V/F/C select formats/values/formulas/comments, and E toggles Transpose. Enter applies the selected options; Escape cancels the dialog. These letters also work with Alt held on Windows/Linux/BSD.
Escape backs out one keytip level; Alt/F10 again exits keytips. Clicking, scrolling, or switching windows cancels navigation. Access keys do not start while editing text or using another dialog. This is initial support for these Home and legacy paths; other ribbon commands and full mouse-free navigation remain to be implemented. Browsers or desktop environments may reserve Alt/F10 for their own menus.
Logs
The desktop app writes its log to standard error and to gridcraft.log in the logs folder
next to its settings: ~/.config/gridcraft/logs on Linux and BSD ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gridcraft/logs
when set), ~/Library/Application Support/GridCraft/logs on macOS and
%APPDATA%\GridCraft\logs on Windows. Each start moves the previous log to gridcraft.1.log and
that one to gridcraft.2.log, so the log of a run that crashed survives the next start; attach
them to a bug report. A log file stops growing at 16 MiB. By default GridCraft's own crates log
at info and everything else at warn; RUST_LOG replaces that with env_logger-style
directives, e.g. RUST_LOG=debug or RUST_LOG=warn,gridcraft_engine=debug (a trailing *
matches a prefix: gridcraft*=debug). Runs with GRIDCRAFT_NO_PREFS set (no saved settings)
log to standard error only.
For agents: MCP, CLI and the control channel
claude mcp add gridcraft -- gridcraft-cli mcp # headless MCP server
gridcraft-cli mcp --connect 7979 # MCP bridged to a running window
gridcraft-cli eval '=XLOOKUP("b",{"a","b"},{1,2})' # → 2
gridcraft-cli run --sample budget --cmd 'home.bold={"range":"B4:F4"}' --out budget.xlsx
gridcraft-cli cat budget.xlsx --range B4:F15 # aligned text table
gridcraft-cli commands --search chart # every command and its params
The MCP server offers tools such as read_range, write_range, set_cell, evaluate_formula,
format_range, insert_chart, create_table, sort_range, filter and execute_command
(which reaches every one of GridCraft's commands). The desktop app's control channel adds real
pointer and keyboard input, dialogs and screenshots. See docs/mcp.md,
docs/cli.md and docs/control-protocol.md.
Architecture
GridCraft is an engine-first Cargo workspace with enforced layering (cargo xtask layers). The
egui frontend is a separate crate, so the UI can be swapped without touching the engine.
| Layer | Crates |
|---|---|
| L0 | core (addresses, values, errors, dates, input parsing) · numfmt (number format codes) |
| L1 | formula (lexer, parser, printer, reference adjustment) · functions (worksheet function library) |
| L2 | model (workbook, sheets, copy-on-write cells, styles, tables, charts…) · calc (dependency graph, evaluator, dynamic arrays) · xlsx (XLSX, CSV, plus XLSB and ODS data import) |
| L3 | chart (toolkit-free chart layout and rendering) |
| L5 | engine (session, commands, history, clipboard, fill, sort, filter, file I/O) |
| L6 | ui-egui (spreadsheet UI, control channel) · mcp (MCP server) |
| L7 | apps/gridcraft, apps/gridcraft-cli, apps/gridcraft-web |
- Contributor and agent rules (clean-room, asset policy, never-crash, quality gates):
AGENTS.md - Bundled assets: each one is listed with its licence in
ATTRIBUTION.md - Releases: signed macOS, Windows, Linux, BSD and web builds; see
docs/releasing.md
Roadmap
GridCraft is in alpha: the core workflow works end to end, but depth, fidelity and file
compatibility are still rough. It covers 89% of standard ribbon commands in our catalog
(docs/parity-checklist.md) and 513 standard worksheet functions
(docs/function-parity.md); this is a parity inventory, not a count of working implementations. Weighted by what spreadsheet users rely on, we
estimate it is about 50% ready for real work. Next up: XLSX fidelity on real-world files, very large
workbooks and multi-threaded recalc, chart depth, text in every script, and .xls import. Stage,
numbers and estimates are in ROADMAP.md; the ranked work list is docs/gaps.md.
Downloads
Download GridCraft from GitHub: the latest release has every build listed below, and all releases has earlier versions and their notes. <ver> in the file names is the version number, and SHA256SUMS.txt lists a checksum for every file.
Windows
| Build | Installer | Portable |
|---|---|---|
| x64 (64-bit Intel/AMD) | gridcraft-<ver>-windows-x64.msi |
gridcraft-<ver>-windows-x64-portable.zip |
| arm64 (Snapdragon and other ARM PCs) | gridcraft-<ver>-windows-arm64.msi |
gridcraft-<ver>-windows-arm64-portable.zip |
| x86 (32-bit) | gridcraft-<ver>-windows-x86.msi |
gridcraft-<ver>-windows-x86-portable.zip |
Installers and executables are code-signed. The MSI installer offers an optional desktop shortcut (unchecked on a new installation).
If the app doesn't open on Windows: the desktop app initializes only DirectX 12 by default.
Letting wgpu also create an OpenGL instance can crash some graphics drivers (AMD's
atio6axx.dll) before the window appears, so the app would flash in Task Manager and quit.
WGPU_BACKEND overrides the default for troubleshooting (for example dx12 or vulkan). In
PowerShell, from the folder containing the executable:
$env:WGPU_BACKEND = "vulkan"
& .\gridcraft.exe
Remove-Item Env:WGPU_BACKEND # restore the default for later launches
An explicit gl override can bring the driver crash back on affected systems, and vulkan can
bring back a crash in some Intel UHD Graphics drivers (igvk64.dll, #120). The macOS, Linux and
web backend defaults are unchanged.
If the app is slow on an older Windows PC, or DirectX 12 can't start: when DirectX 12 finds no
graphics card with a driver for it, it only offers the Windows-provided software renderer, which draws every
frame on the processor. In that case GridCraft uses OpenGL instead, without setting anything; if
the first renderer fails to start, it tries the other one once. The log file records the choice
(lines starting with graphics:). WGPU_BACKEND still overrides it (and then nothing else is
tried), e.g. $env:WGPU_BACKEND = "gl" or "dx12".
DirectX 12 shaders are compiled with FXC, which is part of Windows, so no dxcompiler.dll or
dxil.dll is needed, and a copy another program put on PATH can no longer stop the app at start
("Parent device is lost", #339). $env:WGPU_DX12_COMPILER = "dxc" (or "auto") selects wgpu's DXC
handling again for troubleshooting.
macOS
| Build | File | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| App, universal (Apple silicon + Intel) | gridcraft-<ver>-macos-universal.dmg |
Signed and notarized |
| Command-line tool, universal | gridcraft-cli-<ver>-macos-universal.zip |
Signed and notarized |
Linux
| Format | x86_64 | aarch64 (ARM64) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AppImage | gridcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.AppImage |
gridcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.AppImage |
Runs anywhere; updates itself with AppImageUpdate (.zsync files) |
| Flatpak | gridcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.flatpak |
gridcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.flatpak |
Sandboxed; flatpak install --user <file> |
| Debian/Ubuntu | gridcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.deb |
gridcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.deb |
|
| Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE | gridcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.rpm |
gridcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.rpm |
|
| Tarball | gridcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz |
gridcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.tar.gz |
Unpack anywhere |
FreeBSD
| Build | File |
|---|---|
| x86_64 | gridcraft-<ver>-freebsd-x86_64.tar.gz |
Web (WebAssembly)
| Build | File | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Static site | gridcraft-web-<ver>.zip |
Runs in a modern browser; host it on any static server |
The Crafting Apps
GridCraft is one of the Crafting Apps: free, open-source creative tools from the ArtCraft team, each written from scratch in Rust and each able to stand on its own.
| App | What it's for | Code | Learn more | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
PhotoCraft | Image editing: layers, masks, type and real PSD files | GitHub | Website |
 |
VectorCraft | Vector illustration | GitHub | Website |
 |
FilmCraft | Video editing, color and sound | GitHub | Website |
 |
LightCraft | Photo library and raw development | GitHub | Website |
 |
PdfCraft | Reading, organizing and protecting PDFs | GitHub | Website |
 |
EffectCraft | Motion graphics and visual effects | GitHub | Website |
 |
DesignCraft | Page layout and publishing | GitHub | Website |
 |
GridCraft | Spreadsheets and data · you are here | GitHub | Website |
And ArtCraft itself, our AI image and video studio for artists who want real control.
Come make things with us
Our Discord is where artists of every kind hang out: people who paint, shoot, draw, cut film, set type, and people still figuring out what they like to make. Share what you're working on, ask for help, tell us what's broken, or tell us what you wish these tools could do. Whatever your medium and however long you've been at it, you're welcome here.
discord.gg/artcraft · getartcraft.com · The Crafting Apps · GridCraft
License and credits
GridCraft is dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option. Copyright (c) 2026 ArtCraft Team and the GridCraft contributors. Required notices are in NOTICE.
Bundled fonts, icons, images and other assets keep their own open licenses; each one is listed with its author, source and license in ATTRIBUTION.md.
All UI icons are drawn in code and are original; the sample workbooks and every screenshot in this README were made with GridCraft itself. GridCraft bundles no fonts: it uses the fonts installed on your system.
The ArtCraft name, wordmark and logos in docs/brand/ are trademarks of the
ArtCraft Team and are not covered by this license. They may be used only unmodified, and only as
part of this repository and GridCraft, under docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt.
Forks and modified versions must remove them.
Made by the ArtCraft team and community.