Feature request, icon counter

My most desired feature: Counting Icons

Hi.
After really spending time with this great app over the last week it's become obvious to me that the thing that would make the most difference to me would be a COUNT feature - linked to icons.
I'll give you an example - with my current grade book I run an ongoing competition with prizes up for grabs. I allocate marks for H/W based on the following:
(My lot are a competitive bunch and this is the system we agreed on!)

Submitted on time (Green tick , score = +2),
Emailed rather than handed in (Email icon, score = +1),
Late (Egg timer, score = -5).

I then combine these scores with the marking:

Lacks detail (Thumbs down, Score = +1),
Good (Thumbs up, Score = +3)
Merit (Smiley face, Score = +5)
Hall of fame entry (Gold Cup, Score = +10)
Copied! (Red flag, Score = -10)

Now the scoring system works fine at the moment BUT if I could also count icons I could make a separate column for: Number of Lates, Number of Merits, Number of Lacks detail etc.
This would make for a really powerful system as well as a visual one and would be great to email parents a quick rundown on performance. A count feature would also be equally useful if not more so for the attendance book I've created.

Regarding any upcoming features - I don't expect to get everything for free! If a count feature / stats addition was made in app purchase I'd happily spend that bit extra, it'd be worth it!

Just my suggestions based on spending time with the app. All the best and keep up the great work. I'm already spreading the word about idoceo and it's a large school...

Cheers!

Brett

Thanks for the feedback Brett,
Absolutely , count on that counter (for free)
This is something we've been delaying but now that we've got plenty of new icons to choose from, it is a must.
I even thought of being able to choose the direction in which the counter would work (left or right) but I'm not sure if that would be useful at all with your configuration and it might add unnecessary options... let me know what you think about this.

PS: I've moved the topic to a new one because your explanation deserves it and some users might want to add their comments on it.

Hi Bert - thanks for that news. Sad really how excited I can get about receiving a spreadsheet function. I probably should get out more

Regarding a directional count I'm not sure I know what you mean. Something akin to a horizontal lookup? Basically with the way I'm organising sheets I'm putting the data columns to the right and the summary calculated columns to the far left. I find an easier way to view important calculations without scrolling across to the far right. Under this system I would always be counting left to right. I guess if you had a series of different systems on the same sheet with calculated fields in the middle you would need to specify which direction in which to search for your icon criteria - is this what you meant? I'm sure some users would benefit from that functionality. One of the challenges must be to accommodate the different ways users set things out. Is there an examples section on the forum? I'd be happy to share templates to get new users up and running (And more likely to benefit from others' work myself!)

Btw, if I ever get out of hand and start requesting nested IF features feel free to kick me out

Hi Brett,
Yup, that's exactly what I meant about directional count, but probably will go first for a simple counter, we'll have time to add more complex conditions later.
And Don't get me started with conditional IF statements! It has been requested already and I agreed already on them ... I Should get out more too