Q: No more categories in numbers 3.0?

1) You can do that in old Numbers too, can't you?

Yes, you can, which is why I said:

I suspect Categories was removed because the Categories feature was hindering the use of the functions that were designed to provide the same functionality in a cleaner, richer, more flexible way.

As to "flip up/down functionality":

2) Does this in any way replace a row with a flip up/down functionality?

I'm guessing you mean the ability to hide or show the sample data under categories.

When you build a summary or pivot table that is seperate than your data table, it is no longer necessary to show and hide your data. I personally found it quite troublesome to constantly have to hide and show my data when I had hundreds of rows and needed to see dozens of categories lines up. A seperate table solves that issue because you can see all your data and your summary at the same time.

> The proper method is to use the SUMIFS, the COUNTIFS and the AVERAGEIFS functions and

> others like them to build your pivot tables.

1. Create a new table to summarize your data.
2. Add a header column with the list of categories you want to summarize.
3. In the header row, add the cross referencing information you want to summarize with.
4. In the cells, place SUMIFS or similar functions to generate your data.
5. Make sure to check the "Preserve Collumn" option for each argument in the formula and the "Preserve Row" option where it references your header row.

See this example.

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And how about when I have "proper data" like 24,000 rows from an RMS search, each with a generated string error message, hostname and other information - and there could be 1 of each - or more than 1000, and I have no prior knowledge of what those strings might contain, but I want to know how many times each error occurs on each host, and table categories can do it in a couple of clicks?

Well. Sounds great. But I do not understand how to do what you showed me.

Don't understand how to use SUMIFS to categorize all my transactions and invoices after month and year.

I like Numbers, because it is (was) easier to understand and better looking than Excel! :-)

Highly doubt Apple would remove a function for a more complex and diffcult one to do. If we look at their recent history (Final Cut Pro X anyone?), it is a lot more likely that they would remove a complex function to make it even simpler...

I wouldnt call what Madmanuk suggest "the proper way" rather a  "workaround".

But it works.

Although its a fix it's certainly not a quickfix.

Sadly it doesnt help me much since the files Ive opened seem destroyed and cant be opened in the old version anymore and I dont have the time needed to mess with this sort of crap right now.

Thanks tomogden. This is a useful workaround, one that I use frequently, but I there two limitations compared to the now-awol categorization feature.

(1) As mentioned by madmanuk, this approach requires you to list explicitly/manually the category values on which you summarize.  If, having created the summary table as you show, you add a new detail data item with type "E" or category "3", for example, that data item will not be summarized in the table at all, whereas with categories, a new summary row is created automatically when that happens.  Worse, if the total number of distinct category values is large, manual updates to the summary table are extremely tedious and error-prone.

(2) One of the key benefits of categories is that they show summary information in context with detail.  Organizing detail by category and listing the category heading with the detail it summarizes is an extremely useful way to visiualize many large data sets (even small ones, actually).  In the new version of numbers there is no way to organize data in this way.  That, is a huge problem for many of us.   It was one of the best features of the previous version of Numbers. 

I did NOT suggest that was the proper way - I was quoting the "proper way" so that I could properly mock it.

Aha. I see!

Your language subtleties totally escaped me.

Being of Viking-origin I hope Im excused.

of course

I tried to mark the quote in my reply - but it wouldnt let me do so other than the first two lines

so im not surprised you were confused.

Hi

So now I have a problem. I (stupidly, but I am learning about updates going backwards) deleted the older iWork version before realizing that the new apps were (any expletive will do).

So I decided to reinstall the older ones, but I get a message telling me that there is a problem and that the older version of numbers won't launch.  Any ideas? Thanks a lot!

Idea in passing, I think that Apple has defintively gone beyond the curve. Too bad, that was 20 or so exciting years.

Is this a problem with your files? Once you open your files in a newer version, it won't open in the older. You'll need to open your files from an older backup version for that.

Thanks, I have time machine backups so I can access recent versions made with the pre-mavericks Numbers. The problem I have is that after an apparently uneventful reinstall of iWorks, pre-mavericks Numbers won't lauch.

One reason someone might not have other versions is if they use network drives.  Amazingly, network drives do not support versioning.  I mean, I understand, it is only 2013.

Apple has become the most pronounced example of a company that removes capapbiliteis from products while increasing the versions. The examples of features removed from Page is long.  Bizarre. 

I am going to check out OpenOffice more. It may be time to start moving back to Linux for desktop environment rather than just servers.  Productivity on Apple desktops is just becoming too limited.

Actually that broad generalization does not apply here. It turns out Apple has reconstructed all the iWork apps from the more minimalist iOS versions in order to complete the platform convergence. Some features were missed in the process and are in the process of being added back.

See Apple's announcement on the issue. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6049?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

I'll stand by my statement.  I comprehend, I think as well as most of us watching Apple from the outside, their strategy. 

Please read their announcment again.  Two pretty important features of an office productivity suite include merging and analyzing.  From what I can tell, they've removed both of those capabilities from the current Numbers and Pages, and their announcment doesn't talk about adding them back, unless that is what they mean by improvements to Applescript support.  (Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad they made an announcment to let us know they were going to make "improvements to zoom and window placement".)

I create small business capabilities.  I don't do Windows unless I have to.  I could come up with a pretty extensive list of capabilities that are missing, have been removed or have failed to work as designed that are very important for being able to market an Apple-based network to a small business. 

To keep this on topic and relevent to your message, categories in Numbers was at least a workaround for the powerful alternative (pivot tables) in Excel.  There is nothing in the announcement, nor in the software releases I've seen, that indicates Apple is trying to add this type of business-needed power to their office suite. 

I switched to Apple (from predominantly Linux) as my desktop OS when OS X came out.  I am a big fan of the work they've done and how they've differentiated themselves.  But as a long-time consumer, I believe they need to get off the huge pile of cash they are sitting on and hire more developers so they can roll out products without rolling back capabilities.