The new explorer bar in windows XP explorer window is a good idea. it allows
a list of commonly used functions grouped by type, and hidable under it's
group name. Excel could make use of a feature like this, wherein many
columns or rows could be grouped together as a single group, and with one
click be "hidden", that is the rows or columns after those selected would
collapse to take their place, thus hiding data. I commonly use Excel to do
lengthy data transformations, and often I wish to compare the final results
to the raw data at the top of the spreadsheet. Freeze panes is a good
feature for this, but it only allows two reference views and they are
relatively static. Having a hiding feature would allow groups of data to be
left out, and there could more easily be no bounds as to the format those
could take. In this way something from the beggining, end, and middle of the
worksheet could be compared easily. If the interim data needs to be
referenced, a simple click could allow that data to drop down, as it does in
windows explorer, to reveal the sets of data previously out of reach.

Sounds pretty cool huh? to me this would be a wonderful improvement to the
ways one can manage their speadsheet.

thanks