☐ cool new feature
☑ could help many users!
☑ removes something that feels like a „bug“
☐ nice to have
☐ nobody needs it
What inspired this wish list request?
A task that puzzles many new Jmp user at some point:
how to create a formula column with a column reference (or a constant) that is pre-defined and stored in a variable.
The good news is that an experience user can choose from a range of solutions:
On the other hand, before a user gets aware of the issue, reads the manual, finds a community post or asking for help in the community, ... he will just start with the most simple approach: use the bare column reference (or constant) within the formula.
Then Jmp will display an error, the column formula will not work - or the formula will not work anymore after a restart of JMP.
What is the improvement you would like to see?
For an experienced user, it's very easy to identify the issue and to correct it.
So, maybe, a Jmp "Copilot" could detect the issue as well and guide the user to a solution,
e.g. by providing a link to
Is it possible to automatically correct the code?
via right click, maybe Jmp could automatically add an Eval(Substitute(...)) which replaces a placeholder with the variable that was defined outside of the column formula.
Why is this idea important?
New users will lose less time identifying the error + searching for a solution.
The application case of a column reference in a column formula is the most common use case, but in principle, the same Copilot could also detect and fix similar issues where variables are not evaluated before handing them over or where variables are evaluated too early before they are handed over to the next function.
