Better summaries and charts for checkbox columns

[Robin]

I have a column of check boxes in my table. Love this for things like habit and training trackers (each row is a day and each column is a habit, and I check the box if I did the thing that day).

I want to:

• Use the “summarize” function on the table column to count how many boxes in the column are checked - i.e. show “how many times have I done this thing?” (count if true)
• Do analytics (e.g. make a chart) based on “true” values (i.e. checked boxes) being displayed or counted, and not “false” values (i.e. unchecked boxes)

Instead, current “summarize” functions and charts either:

• Count anything that has a checkbox in it without differentiating if its checked or not (i.e. all rows - why would I want to do this??)
• Don’t work (e.g. Sum, Median, etc. do nothing)

Can we have better handling of checkbox data in tables? I think what I listed I want is how many people would intuitively think it should work anyways, and would be more useful. I have figured out some workarounds, but wish this also worked better by default.

Thanks for considering!

[Robin]

Adding a screenshot of the current count summary on my table:

Seems silly that it basically just counts how many rows I have (5) every time instead of telling me how many boxes are checked…

[Piet_Strydom]

HI Robin,

Welcome to Coda, I hope you find it a rewarding experience and a useful tool.

There are some (3 below) workarounds for what you are trying to do:

You can count unique in the summarize column tool, or you could write formulas on the canvas or in the table.

The screenshot is from Rambling Pete's Quick examples

Regards
Rambling Pete

[Robin]

Thanks for sharing these workarounds, I will definitely use them! I’ll be perusing that link as well, looks like a lot of useful examples there. I still wish these worked better by default though.