Choice Component - multiple selections

[Pablo_books]

Can this not be done with a Checklist style to the Inline List?

[yann]

@Pablo_books

Can this not be done with a Checklist style to the Inline List?

Yes, this is how I am doing it on step 1

[yann]

Looks like I up for another short tutorial
@profechef thank you for advice and screenshots!

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How to make multiple choice criteria

1. Create a special sheet for your choice criteria. Make sure it has a “Row ID” column. Make a user-specific text column for checkbox value. (These actions can only be done from the Glide Data Interface, not from the Google Spreadsheet.)

   If you have multiple levels of criteria (e.g. categories and subcategories) make three columns - “Category” (text), “Parent” (text, listing the name of the “parent” category), and “Child” (relation “Category” to “Parent” on the same list, match multiple). This has been described in some other tutorial, I don’t remember where

2. On your selection screen use the “Details” layout and add an “Inline list” component with your chosen criteria. Use the “Checklist” layout for this inline list. Then set your checkbox value column as “Check value” in the list settings.

   NB! Use “Checklist” in the “Inline list” settings, not in the general screen settings! This is a bit confusing

   Again, if you have multiple levels of criteria, your top-level list should have a “view details” action (in the “Features” tab), and the lower levels should include the “Inline-list” component with a “Checklist” layout as well. On the bottom level change the list action to “none”.

3. Now, go to the Data interface in Glide, to the sheet where your searchable data is. Create four columns.

• A single-value column - I called it “Dummy True” because it should have “True” in every row.
• A relation column that relates “Dummy True” to the checkbox value on your sheet with criteria.
• A joined list column, which takes the data from the previous relation column and joins it in one cell.
• And, finaly, an “if-then-else” column, with the following condition “if your joined list in the previous column includes the content of the “category” column (or whatever column that contains the criteria for the searchable data), then true”.

Now, just use the last “if-then-else” column as a visibility filter for your list to apply the search results.

[yann]

I found a significant flaw in this approach: the selection (checked boxes) stay for the same user and can’t be cleared :-(((
Still looking for a solution for that, so far no one knows, what to do.

[AyS_0908]

Cannot you clear it via a coumpound action?

[yann]

Do you mean custom action? No, unfortunately, I can’t - “Set columns” only works on the first row, and I need to clear the whole column.
Described in more detail here.
If you have an idea of how to do it, that would be great!

[Jeff_Hager]

Here’s my take on “clearing” a whole column.

Reset Multiple Rows At Once

There have been several requests for people to find a way to clear a value in multiple rows. I was thinking about that and came up with a quick example of a way to handle that. Instead of trying to clear a value in an entire column, I realized we could just change one value on a parent column, load it as a single value in our sheet and then compare that parent value to a column that we set or unset for each row. It’s not about clearing an entire column, it’s about making a value in each row n…

[AyS_0908]

Definitely, do you agree (or not), that if there is one component that is missing in Glide, it is the multi-select?
We should organise a sit-in !

[yann]

Unfortunately, not the only - check out the “Feature request” category

As far as I remember, the whole story starts with the fact, that the form interface doesn’t have a clear and bright “Submit” button. So there was a workaround to create a form from the regular “details” screen, then another workaround for multiple criteria by @Robert_Petitto, then one more for multiple-choice… and then we hit the wall with the need to clear values before the next search (which is of course done automatically in the “form” interface )

By the way, there is a solution to that, too, but it’s ugly and unscalable. I cut down the number of categories to the absolute minimum (8) and made on my “Home” sheet two columns for each category - one for the value, the other - a relation to the “Categories” sheet. After that, I was able to make 8 “Set columns” actions - one for each category.

[dinomeg]

Do you know if there’s a way to create a relation and a join list using the column header instead of the true/false of each checkbox component?

@ThinhDinh

So your ultimate aim is to have a column that includes all “checked” tags, is that correct?

@ThinhDinh I didn’t see your comment up there. Can you create a relation column for multiple check boxes with the headers as tags instead of true/false?

[ThinhDinh]

Column headers won’t work. You would have to structure the data vertically (in rows) instead of horizontally and make the “checked” a user-specific column.

[dinomeg]

Hm. Ok. That makes sense but I’m still a little lost. So I would have one column be “options” listed vertically like in a choice list and a second column be a user specific y/n column? How would I tie the checkbox column to apply to each item in the first column on an edit screen? I want users to be able to select multiple options on an edit screen in a way that I can relate them so I can add a list join on the detail display screen. I hope that makes sense. I’ve been trying to apply all these multi-choice topics and I just can’t figure out a way to do it properly.

[ThinhDinh]

@dinomeg

How would I tie the checkbox column to apply to each item in the first column on an edit screen?

Can you elaborate more on this part?

[dinomeg]

My only experience with organizing information vertically is for choice components so I’m confused as to how I would attach a check box column to be directly associated with the vertical column of options I’m creating. Does that make sense? I feel like I must be missing something.

On the edit screen, I want to have a list of options to check off that are specific to each user and then be able to create a relation to that user so I can create a list join and display that component on the profile screen so I don’t have to show the whole mess of check boxes.

[DNA-PC]

I’m as surprised as I am disappointed to learn that Glide doesn’t support neither single nor multi selects.

I find those to be such must-haves in any app, I’m in complete disbelief.
My experience with Glide has been rather good so far, but this is such a blocker that I stopped learning it and plan on trying out WeWeb next, instead.

Unbelievable, I still hope I missed something obvious.

[Robert_Petitto]

Not sure what you’re experiencing, but Glide offers BOTH single and multiselects via the choice component. Are you referring to the data editor? If so, I agree, there needs to be a “selection” column type like Airtable and now Google sheets. @jason

If you’re referring to the choice component, then this might help:

Glide Docs • Choice Component

[DNA-PC]

I couldn’t find the “choice” component last time I tried - I’ll retry.

I noticed this because I used Airtable as a data source, and all my single/multi select got converted into “text” in Glide, which was unexpected, and that happened 3 days ago.

Is it a feature not available on the free plan?

[Robert_Petitto]

Right. Glide doesn’t have a “choice/select” column type in the data editor so, yes, it converts the selections to text if single select and an array column type if multiple select.

@jason, I’ve asked for choice column type a few times over the past year or two. Is this on Glide’s radar for 2023?

[DNA-PC]

Okay, thanks for the clarification, I was so used to having a “Choice column” that I didn’t even think it could be available as a “Component”.

So, I had indeed missed something.

I lack experience to tell whether that’s a good or a bad thing, maybe it’s more flexible than a “choice column” with such design. I guess I’ll need to learn how to use it properly.

[Darren_Murphy]

@DNA-PC

I lack experience to tell whether that’s a good or a bad thing, maybe it’s more flexible than a “choice column” with such design. I guess I’ll need to learn how to use it properly.

Well, unless you plan on giving your users direct access to your database, I’d think that a choice “column” wouldn’t be very useful at all