It’s been three weeks since blist launched in private beta at DEMO. You’ve been busy making blists; we’ve been busy adding features. You may not have noticed but we’ve had three or four releases since DEMO, mostly below the surface bug fixes and streamlining of the account creation process. Today we’re pleased to release some important new features.
By far the most requested feature has been the ability to import data from Excel. Now we have it. When you click on the [New blist] icon, instead of having “Coming Soon” stamped over it, you can now import from CSV. Just give your blist a name, browse for the CSV file and line up the columns with the appropriate column types.
Importing is fairly manual and basic for now. Over time we’ll try to do more by guessing column types and automatically generating pick lists. For now, while we’re still in beta this new feature dramatically improves the process of migrating an existing pseudo-database from Excel into blist.
We also released some very basic sharing capabilities. You can now share a blist or lens with someone else. Just click on the share icon 
and we’ll send an email invitation to whomever you want to share your blist with. Initially blists and lenses are shared read-only. Don’t worry, pretty soon we’ll add very robust permission-setting capabilities.
We’ve added basic charting capabilities. Load up your blist or lens and click on the chart icon (the one that looks like a pie chart), then select the chart type and X & Y axis and you’ll get something kinda like this:
As for major features, the last new one is simple search across all text columns. When we launched three weeks ago, the simple search box only searched tags. Now it’s scope is much broader (but yes, we know, not broad enough).
The feedback since launch has been terrific. Keep it coming. The message we’ve been hearing is that you like what you see but we still have a ways to go before you can start using blist regularly with your critical data. We agree. This feature release is a small, but important step in the right direction. We’re not only listening, but working hard to meet your needs. Thanks.
Not sure if this is the right place, but I can’t create a pick list to save my life. Not sure what I’m doing wrong. :( I really hope it’s not a Firefox incompatibility thing.
[...] more suggestions based on the new features found in the latest [...]
Congratulations! I’ve added some more suggestions, just in case you run out of things to do :-)
so is there Excel file import or it’s just CSV file import? just to be fair :)
[...] this video for quick demo and get the flavor of [...]
any idea when you will allow data embedding in websites and blogs?
ovande
Loving it! My only suggestion is to keep bringing on the new features, but there is one thing that I really really would like to have. That is a desktop version. Please bring us “Blist Desktop” soon!
I find it only imports the first number of columns, not all of them. Not sure what’s going on there. And also you can’t see all the columns in the import dialog. Perhaps its only importing the columns you see in that dialog.
And also certain things are sluggish once the data is up. For example, renaming a column makes you wait a long time. You guys gotta optimize that eventually for prime time.
And finally I couldn’t figure how to change a column data type (say from num to phone) once the data is up.
Kevin and Blist team,
Great effort on the product and Kevin you were a rock star at Demo..
I am really enjoying learning / setting up blists – some end user requests – please prioritize allowing larger file import (PPTs are file hogs), and shared admin of blists… keep up the great work!
When will I be able to perform math on my blist data, e.g.
data: miles traveled, gal. gas used
display: miles, gals., miles per gallon
Thanks!