An option similar to "Prevent scroll from changing value" but which lets us "Prevent arrow keys from changing value".
Especially when working with an editable number column in a table, users are primarily navigating between cells with the arrow keys. They can hit enter to move to the next row, or tab for the next column, but for a lot of people their first instinct is to use the arrow key because that's how they've navigated between cells in spreadsheets (excel, sheets, etc). Since there's no way to disable the up/down arrow key changing the value, it's really easy to accidentally change the value without noticing causing data integrity issues.
Hi @Mitchel_Smith,
I can definitely make a feature request for this. Is there a reason why making solely the column that has numbers not editable would not be possible?
I was just playing around with the table and it seems that if the row is clicked the up and down arrows toggle fine, the number in an editable column needs to be clicked to select the cell, to then change the value via arrow keys. Is that a common scenario for your users? If they are clicking in to the cell the best option would be to make it not editable.
Also the table will not update the data unless a save event is configured and the save changes button at the bottom of the table is clicked as well. If a user clicks 'cancel' then any accidental temporary changes will be removed.
Hey @Jack_T ,
“Is there a reason why making solely the column that has numbers from being editable would not be possible?” Not sure what you’re asking here.
Often they are changing multiple cells back to back and are in the habit of using arrow keys to navigate between cells, blame the prevalence of Google Sheets for that. I’ve found that more frequently than not I just don’t want arrow keys to change the value and I’d like to be able to disable it. Ideally I’d like to be able to set it so that the arrow keys ALWAYS navigate between cells - regardless of if you’ve clicked into one or not - so that functionality is consistent no matter the specific state of selection, but having it so that it just doesn’t do anything would be a good start.
Setting the column to not editable isn’t a good solution here because we specifically want the column to be editable.
Also the table will not update the data unless a save event is configured and the save changes button at the bottom of the table is clicked as well. While that’s true by default, we’ve set up a sort of autosave feature so that after x changes or a set amount of time your changes will automatically save. This is great to avoid people getting into a flow and making 50 changes before navigating away, but it does mean that if they make an unintended change it can get saved. If it’s something like a typo, that’s on the user and nothing we can do there. In the case of the arrow changing the value though a lot of the time newer users think “I hit the arrow and my selection didn’t change, must not have done anything” and try enter or tab.
Hi @Mitchel_Smith,
Apologies that was a typo for that first quote. I meant to say, in my testing I was able to keep all columns editable but disable editing for a column of Numbers and that made it easier to navigate up and down the rows without accidentally editing the numbers via arrow keys. It sounds like that won't work for your use case and I can definitely file this feature request for the table to have a toggle to turn off "navigation by arrow keys" 
Yep the prevalence of Google Sheets has definitely affected how app users expect spreadsheets/tables to behave. That is really cool that you were able to set up auto-save functionality 
That makes perfect sense. Thanks so much Jack! I’ll update here if I find any better workarounds in the meantime!