Desktop ... can I block it (or at least know the user is not on mobile?)

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Hi! Here is my use case:

  • I have my app for online corona testing - video call with a trained agent
  • there is a Glide app for the User, and one for the Agent (call center app) - all running from the same GSheet
  • the user needs to take photos (NOT upload) of their test process to complete the process (imagine a covid test result)

The problem I have is that the user could access the app from a desktop AND they are not forced to take a photo live, but instead seem to only have the option of uploading a saved file. This is not brilliant for my app.

So is it possible to…

  • stop the user using a Glide app on a desktop?
  • know what device the user is using for their Glide app… so I can put in different text warnings / change the process
  • or anything else that might help

I’m open to ideas! Thanks, M

covid 7
covid 7155Ă—592 35 KB

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This is not ideal, or a full solution, but you can change the description of your app in the App Info settings to a short warning that it’s for mobile use only. This way when the app is shared Users may read that. There was also the recent post about the different social sharing options with a RTF Component, and how to modify the share message for SMS, email, etc. It worked great. I’ll try to find it again.

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Realistically this is not going to work for my service. I cannot imagine anyone going into the app, then clicking on the about to learn more. It is not that kind of app, and I hope I have designed it so that it is obvious what the user needs to do to walk through things.

It is a real shame that I cannot pick up what the device is (mobile / tablet / desktop). Glide must know this … but the data is sadly not accessible :(((((((

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That’s not the exact workflow I meant. The case I specifically meant was for peer-to-peer sharing, and where you could apply the warning so that the User could see it in the share link.

It really comes down to how are people going to arrive at your app - what are the distribution methods? If you have a landing page that people see first then you can give all the warning you need and even give the options for them to send the app subdomain link to their phone with their preferred method.

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I understand - my expectation is that people will find this app either via QR code (which means opening on their mobile) or the link to the app will be on some site, or in an email.

If they open the link on their desktop, they will go to the landing page for the app… which gives them the app experience looking like a mobile on the screen… but functioning like a desktop. This is totally fine apart from this one feature, a critical one for my app. I want to ensure that the user takes a live photo, rather than upload an old image or one taken from somewhere else and saved.

I could achieve this if I knew that the user was looking on a desktop. I could have different instructions, for instance. Right now it is a big hole in my app logic - one that I would like to close somehow!

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What if you make the Image Picker only allow “Camera Only” uploads?

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I do that… but the functionality only works on mobile and tablets. On a desktop, clicking opens up the file selector :frowning:

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Bahh that stinks! Thought it would be an easy work-around. Ideally, that setting should do what you’re looking for on desktop. Maybe a feature request for the desktop-specific change for that setting is in order.

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If your root domain was a landing page that you created, then you can do this easily.

“trythisthing.com” can detect the device and then give the appropriate instructions and link to “app.trythisthing.com” in Glide.

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I like the idea of narrowing down how a user can get to the app in the first place :slight_smile: