Conditional formatting logic - Why do empty cells get max-opacity color?

[innovark37]

Description

Empty/null cells are being highlighted with FULL color intensity when they technically shouldn't match the comparison logic.

Here's what happens:

• Set up: value < 10 with "warning" color scheme
• Result: Cells with value 5 → subtle warning color ✅
• Also: Empty cells → BRIGHT warning color ❓

The empties end up visually dominating the table, pulling attention away from actual data points that genuinely satisfy the condition.

There seems to be a mismatch between:

1. Visual treatment (full opacity, strong color)
2. Logical meaning (does NULL < 10 actually make sense?)

Current visual weight:
🟡 Empty cells - Full opacity, bright colors (most noticeable)
🟠 Matching values - Lower opacity, subtle highlighting (less noticeable)
⚪ Normal cells - No highlight

This inverts the visual priority - the least important cells (empties) become the most visually prominent.

Proposal for Discussion

Could we consider any of these approaches?
A. Fix the logic (recommended):

• NULL < 10 → FALSE (no highlight)
• Aligns with database semantics
• Solves visual distraction

B. Fix the visuals (if logic is intentional):

• Empty highlights get different styling
• Never use full opacity for uncertain matches
• Clear visual distinction

C. Add clarity (minimum):

• Tooltip explaining why empty was highlighted
• Documentation of this behavior
• Option to toggle "include NULLs in comparisons"

[dosubot[bot]]

This happens because the conditional formatting logic treats null or empty cells as numeric zero when applying rules like < 10, so they end up matching the condition and get highlighted—often with full opacity, making them visually dominant. The code doesn't explicitly exclude nulls from numeric comparisons, so they pass through as if they were 0 and receive the strongest color intensity by default. There’s no built-in config to change this behavior right now, which is why empty cells can be more prominent than actual data matches [source].

Recent updates added a "Use gradient" toggle, letting you switch between gradient (varying opacity) and solid (full opacity) color modes, but this doesn’t address the logic for nulls matching numeric conditions [source]. There’s also a new feature for boolean conditional formatting with explicit isNull and isNotNull operators, so you can intentionally highlight empty/null cells if you want—but by default, nulls are still treated as 0 in numeric rules [source].

To align with database semantics (NULL < 10 should be false), the logic would need to skip null/empty values in the comparator functions. This would require a code change in the conditional formatting utilities (e.g., in getColorFormatters.ts). As a workaround, you could use the new boolean operators to target nulls directly, or adjust your data to avoid nulls where possible.

If you want to see this fixed, the best approach is to update the comparator logic to treat null/empty as non-matching for numeric rules, or add a config option to control this behavior. For now, the only way to avoid the visual distraction is to use the boolean formatting or preprocess your data.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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