Symphony.

I'm working on a way to make updating prices for many products on a daily basis easy. Has anyone come up with some useful approaches to this problem?

I'm thinking about taking the basic publishing index page and making the entries editable without having to click through to each entry (i.e. Ajax). Or do something similar with the Backend Views extension.

Any thoughts or ideas?

If you make this happen, I'd be very keen. I do manual data entry for a side project of 60-70 rows at a time. I've become a keyboard shortcut ninja and make use of prepopulation, but a spreadsheet interface would be awesome.

Thinking out loud, why don't we actually use a spreadsheet program? Then import with the Import/Export CSV extension?

I once tried to build spreadsheet-like editing on a frontend page (using an event with "allow multiple"), but I had to give up at that time because I didn't get form validation right. Maybe I will revisit this one day... I still think it's easier to build this in the frontend than in the backend.

but I had to give up at that time because I didn't get form validation right

I feel you man ...

Maybe I will revisit this one day

When that day comes, @see Sections Event and bundled XSLT utilities. The features include what you need.

I also had a plan to do this as an extension at some point, but I'll have to find time first!

@brendan At the moment I use ImportCSV for similar functionality, only problem is it doesn't cover every field (although can be extended which is great), has obvious issues with uploads and you need to reflect IDs to a field and export them if you don't want to create your own unique identifier where there isn't one naturally in the section.

@see Sections Event and bundled XSLT utilities. The features include what you need.

You don't really want me to try it, do you? (Some people say that I have a special talent in finding bugs, i.e. breaking things.)

Some people say that I have a special talent in finding bugs, i.e. breaking things.

Excelent :D

Thinking out loud, why don't we actually use a spreadsheet program? Then import with the Import/Export CSV extension?

I fear this would be a breaking point for the client. As @s_e noted there are also a couple drawbacks.

I once tried to build spreadsheet-like editing on a frontend page (using an event with "allow multiple"), but I had to give up at that time because I didn't get form validation right.

I may be better off creating a backend content page for the specific purpose of editing prices. Nonetheless, I'd like to avoid a frontend page.

We will see what I learn!

This any use? http://code.google.com/p/jquery-datatables-editable/wiki/EditCell

Or is it more the Symphony side of things that's a head ache?

Would this help? http://handsontable.com/

My original thinking seemed too daunting a task for me. I also ended up restructuring the sections which would make this approach less ideal. I'm afraid I must pursue a one-off backend content page this time around.

Thanks for the feedback and the links! Maybe someone more capable will pick up the idea and take off with it.