Fantastic - I've found some serious Numbers people!
I'm a long-time Mac guy, a seasoned amateur Excel guy - and now a Numbers novice. I'm really interested in how seemless the iCloud thing is with Numbers between devices, and Windows. I've got three devices, an old 10.7.5 Mac with Numbers 2.0, and newer MacBook with 10.9.x and Numbers 3.0 + Windows 7/Excel 2007 via bootcamp, and an iPad Mini with 7.0.3 and Number 2.x (the new upgrade for iOS.)
Anyway, my report of what's lost from Number 2.0 to 3.0, on Mac OS X only (not the iOS because it was never there to begin with.)
My first discovered Numbers 3.0 "take away":
VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP formulas that takes a entire table as its (rows-range) 2nd argument have this taken away: you no longer have the ability to just type in the table name (without the cell ranges also). This may affect many other functions, but I don't know yet - as I said I'm a novice.
So in Numbers 2.0, you could type in just the table name in HLOOKUP like this (and VLOOKUP, but I don't need to repeat both since they're transpositions of each other):
Say, you've got this simple table called MyTable:
And another table where you're going to do an HLOOKUP in cell F2, with the value B in cell D2:
in cell F2 you type:
=HLOOKUP( D2, MyTable, 2) <which will return the 20 from row 2, column B from MyTable>
In Numbers 2.0, you could just type that right in, and it would work.
I'm finding in Numbers 3.0, just MyTable in argument 2, the (rows-range) argument, will not work - you'll get whatever autofill subsection of the table MyTable. To get past the new Numbers 3.0 autofill/autocomplete stuff you need to type this:
MyTable::A1:C3 <not just MyTable, then tab anymore like in Numbers 2.0>
Am I doing something wrong? I don't think I am. And, to boot, you're forcing me to KNOW/REMEMBER the exact dimensions of the table - to enter the table at all.
Your other alternative, which is your ONLY alternative on iOS Numbers 1.x and now 2.0 is to drag-select the entire friggin' table range manually (a subject of another post). The bigger the table, the suckier it is to do it that way.
If we can verify this, add this to your list Jerrold Green, and I will definitely will feedback with "Numbers 3.0" in the beginning of the title, as suggested by SGIII.
I will probably make my feedback an enhancement request to make the table name itself be the first autofill suggestion, rather some subsection of the table - I mean, isn't an entire table as the (rows-range) what VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP mainly do?????
See the autofill defaults you're first presented with after typing MyTable:, instead of just MyTable, in this screenshot:
These are the autofill suggestions you get for the rows-range 2nd argurment, after typing this much: MyTable:
And you click one of the first three options you see above:
MyTable::'5' - all of row 2 (the 5, 20 and 60) as your rows-range
MyTable::5 - all of row 2 again, but with a different color
MyTable::X - all of row 3 (the X, Y and Z)
Again, why can't just all of MyTable be the first autofill suggestion?
One final thought: what I think Apple's long range plan is, is to make autofill the preferred way of doing things, because that's what works best on tablets, but that's just a hunch.
Cheers!
