Classic apps to glide apps migration

Will you help us migrating from classic apps to glide apps or do we have to start all over from scratch?
Would it be possible to make a test and migrate a classic app to a glide app in order to see what it would look like (keeping the classic app just in case as fallback plan)? Thanks

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I believe Glide is working on something to convert Classic Apps to Apps.

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Is there any easy way to actually turn the classic glide apps into an app that is downloadable or shareable?

All glide apps are glide products that are hosted on glide servers. They depend on glide to work. No, there is no way to download them as independent apps. As for sharing, you can always share the url for the app, or make it copy-able so other can make a copy in their own glide accounts.

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Hey guys,

Did you get any response on it? I have one classic app that I want to migrate to the new apps, but I didnĀ“t find any easy way for it.

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No ETA, but they have been working on something to help make the transition better.

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No response from Glide. But I really hope they will facilitate the migration from classic app to new glideapps ! :pray::pray::pray:

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Following up on this thread, do you know if Glide will help us migrate to Glide apps from Classic Apps? I am thinking of giving some of my clients a prototype of the work we have done so far but I donā€™t want a failure product either.

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There hasnā€™t been any announcement from Glide. If and when a feature to migrate a classic app to a new app (including the design) is available, the announcement will be front and center, most likely pinned at the top of the community forum.

In the meantime, from the dashboard, you can make a new app from an existing classic app and the data editor of the new app will be identical to that of the classic app. You will need to rebuild the design.

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I swear @Robert_Petitto mentioned a video one of these days once the features Apps 2.0 got stabilized. The topic is ā€œThinking/designing in Glide 2.0 vs Classic Glideā€. Maybe a joint effort with @JackVaughan to remove some of the unknown with migration (hint hint - with a modest honorarium from @david for Robert)ā€¦

ā€¦cause this is a HIGHLY desired topic.

It could be as simple as breaking down an existing Glide Classic app Template and how it was converted to Glide 2.0. Or one of Robertā€™s cool apps/examples.

I would personally like to see a mildly complex Classic app (main screen with choices and multiple inline horizontal lists/carousels, couple of tabs for navigation, multiple inline lists on a detail screen using choice components as selectors ) and how someone should rethink/redesign/rework their Classic app for Glide Apps.

Thanks as always

The response I got when I asked about it is: ā€œRight now there isnā€™t a direct way to do it, itā€™s a pending feature request thatā€™s been requested by the community. Iā€™ll keep you updated if this changes.ā€

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The further out we get the more it seems as though the status has changed from ā€œby the end of the year you should see somethingā€ to ā€œif and when it happensā€. Iā€™m all set to be an alpha-beta-gamma tester of this conversion feature.

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I just started my migration from Classic to App. Since I use CSS I upgraded to Business. In general I can not see any way for Glide to provide a migration tool from Classic to Apps. Way too much is different. I have not even started moving over the actions yet (which is one item I wish Glide WOULD support in a migration.) Glide should provide an example/roadmap/gotchas/differences for migration and then formally announce that a general migration tool is not forthcoming.

For example, the components (especially collections and images) do not offer the same robustness/feature so they can not be easily mapped (e.g. - CARDs are NOT CARDs ā€¦ no overlays). Easier to just redo the Inline list to Collection and start reformatting it.

Other observations:

  1. Navigation in Apps builder is a pain. Honestly, I got used to woking in the Classic layout builder and selecting between a component on the page and getting its attributes without going to the screenā€™s component listing. Currently the component listing is the only way to find a component and with containers the screen listing is WAY MORE cluttered. Finding/choosing the item you want to work on is way more effort in Apps if you have even a modestly complex page.

  2. Container vs Custom Collection vs ā€¦
    Design is key - Containers can not include other containers nor can they include Custom Collections (which is the coolest/most innovative collection) which really hurts container functionality. On the flip side - using containers makes Web-site design to Mobile design very intuitive and frankly - attractive. Very impressed with this design/implementation (this is the key reason I am migrating). I use lots of containers to hold most components and switch between mobile/web views and am always pleasantly surprised at how well Glide formats the UI for each view

  3. Bite the bullet if you want to have a consistent mobile/web experience.
    There is no comparison between Classic web-site view and Apps web-site view. One is a blown-up mobile view and the other delivers a modern dashboard view.

  4. Rebuilding the Actions for each TAB/Screen will take the most energy.
    About to start this and am looking forward to re-usable actions.

  5. CSS is weird
    CSS works but not as simply as it did before (especially if you are not a CSS guru - which I AM NOT). The experts can and do help - but definitely a different model. And I still canā€™t figure out why their is a CSS section in a component??
    image

Overall, it is a complete re-write BUTā€¦the benefits for a modern web-view (if you need it) will outweigh the difficulty. Plus it is Glide so it takes days not months.

BUTā€¦having to upgrade to Business for CSS does NOT make sense. Other functionality that Glide can/should support that is unique to a Business ā€˜classā€™ developer/deployment I can understand (more robust integrations/database support, rollback, multi-user dev support ā€¦) - but simply using an existing Glide feature - CSS - is not one of them.

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In general I think anything that makes an app more beautiful or makes it easier for a developer to design should be part of the starter package for developers.

But then again for my entire career, Microsoft had a developer version of s q l which had absolutely all the features. But it was limited in users, so it could not be used in a production environment. This made it easy for me as a developer to work on applications for large corporations and not have to foot the bill myself. I had my developer environment and they had their production environment. But on that score Glide doesnā€™t really allow for easy Implementation of a development version of an app.

From my experience, most big companies are moving to 1099 employees rather than in-house IT departments. Small businesses almost exclusively use contract IT people.

Ham-stringing a developer really is counter-productive from a ā€˜letā€™s grow Glideā€™ viewpoint.

Per your other observation. I think it is absolutely possible for Glide to build a conversion feature if the more advanced things like containers are left out. And more to the point, they actually promised us a conversion utility. They did say it was months out.

I am building all my smaller apps using the new features but I cannot convert my main app without some sort of heavy lifting tool that does ninety percent of the work. Just moving the actions over would be daunting. And while most of the screens are absolutely not complex there are so many of them.

And since my main app was done for a nonprofit, grattis by me in order to help the cause, I simply do not have the time to redo it all.

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