In my opinion regular backups are essential when working in Glide. Especially if you are working on an already released application and making changes. So my method is to make a duplicate app fairly regularly, which would depend on how many changes I recently made to the app. So first make the duplicate app.
Even though you can select to copy the sheet and not link your duplicate app to the same spreadsheet, I pretty much always link it to the same sheet. The reason for this is that in a lot of my apps I have an admin app that links to the same sheet as well. If I have to resort to using the duplicate then it is pointing to my production data, same as the admin app. However, after I make the duplicate I always make a copy of the spreadsheet, including the date, the spreadsheet name and the words backup as part of the name. I also name the duplicate app with the same naming convention so I can match them up.
When things go completely wrong with your working/production app:
Close down glide completely.
Use the spreadsheet backup to get your structure and data of the production spreadsheet back to what it was at the time of the backup.
Open the original Glide app and rename it to old, as well as change the Glide .glideapp.io link to something else.
Then open the backup and change its name and link back to the actual production link.
You have now reset the clock so to speak and are back with what you had before you blew things up.
I wasn’t making copies of the App before. I am running a script to take time-driven backup of my google sheet though. A question on above approach.
If you keep your backups pointing to the same sheet and the sheet evolves, won’t the duplicate apps behave unpredictably when restored?
Isn’t it better to make copy of the admin app with “Copy the sheet” option as well with the main app? That way you are able to restore both to a stable state.
Some questions / feature requests for the glide team as well:
Since glide is a no-code (drag-and-drop kind of) app builder, there is no code - meaning there is no repository or something to backup as such for the developers. Don’t you think you should emphasize it in your features - how you keep people’s apps safe, secured and backed up? In the beginning when I was playing around, it didn’t bother me but now as I near an app that is close to market ready I think about oh-shit scenarios.
How can I keep track of changes made to the app? If there is a code-base, this is done using some kind of compare tool and CVS / SVN. There should be some way of doing this in glide as well.
If I develop a business idea and take it to market with glide, what’s the probability my app will be there forever? I don’t know how to frame it but an example: I was using Xamarin earlier. Then Microsoft bought it. But they still supported the earlier SDKs and developed new features. In case of Xamarin, I had C# code which I owned. But in case of glide there isn’t something to hold on to other than the account. I hope I was able to get my point across.
To answer your first number 1 question:
No, but. That is why I suggest that after you make the backup pointing to the same sheet, you then make a backup of that sheet. If the original “sheet evolves” but you really screwed something up and need to go to the backup. You first have to use your backup sheet to restore the original sheet to the time of the backup. You would copy and paste the various sheet tabs back to the original spreadsheet, over-righting what has evolved which potentially is the cause of your screw up. I hope that makes sense.
2. If you backup the admin app with a “Copy the sheet” option your admin app will be linked to a different sheet from any other app, and no longer be the admin app to your main app.
@George_B what if your production app is a Pro app? Won’t the copy be a free version? How will you get the free version to be a Pro version without buying another plan? Can you move your licenses around to different apps you are building? I thought you need to buy a license per app.
I’ve been considering doing this but was unsure how that would work with pro vs free.
You can upgrade and downgrade anytime. And yes you can essentially move the license around but obviously only have as many active Pro apps as licenses you own. So you just downgrade the broken old one and upgrade the backup.
