New Benchling feature focus — Single input columns
Some (most) will say I’m too easily amused, but I always get excited when there is simple new Benchling feature that has an outsized benefit. The “single input column” is the latest new feature make this nerd happy. More importantly, it will make scientists more efficient and will be one more step in improving the notebook experience, which in turn leads to better compliance and better science.
It is common to have the same value for all rows certain columns in a registration or result table. Sometimes the template has a formula to fill down for you, sometimes you drag to fill down, and for the cool kids you can double-click on the drag square to automatically fill down. This last mode was another one of those stupid simple feature enhancements that’s now hard to imagine life without it. These are all good and valid, and now there is a new Benchling feature that provides another option that has different benefits for some use cases, “single input columns”.
You can now convert one of these columns that get a constant value into a single field. Some of the benefits of this simple feature include:
- saves the effort of filling down (with any technique)
- saves some horizontal scrolling (especially of there are multiple single input columns)
- saves the visual noise of repeated data
- avoids the risk of an accidental and unnoticed change to data in one of the cells
- avoids the risk of not filling down all the way (happens when formulas don’t fill properly depending on how rows are added or if users don’t drag down all the way)
- implicitly defines that the value is meant to be a constant
Check out the before and after picture below to see this in action.
You can convert a column by right clicking on it and selecting the “Convert column into single input” menu option (see below). You can reverse the change using the same menu. This can be done dynamically on a per entry basis, but more commonly this change will be made in templates.
When I first started to use this feature, it wasn’t clear how often I’d use it. By the end of the day (literally), I had updated six templates (it took seconds) that I happened to be working on. I suspect that when I review others, most will have at least one table that will benefit from converting some columns. Give it a try, it’s insanely simple and disproportionally valuable for scientists’ user experience, productivity, and accuracy.
I hope you find this useful and that I’ve made it easy to reduce to practice! Please provide feedback on the content, style, and most importantly what you want to hear about. Be sure to “follow” to be notified of new articles.
