Direct URLs to search specific screens

Um, not too sure how to word this topic but I’m looking for a way in which to build a URL with certain ‘search’ query so that we can direct users to a specific screen.

The URL would have parameters that would essentially enter text into the search box dynamically.

I’ve searched the forum for clues but nothing remotely close to what I’m seeking to achieve is coming up.

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So you want to have that URL behind a button or something like that? Interesting.

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This is called Deeplinks or deep linking, and it is in queue to being added to the app. Coming soon

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That’s good to hear because other PWA builders already have deep linking and in some cases SEO functionality for apps.

I guess I’ll have to wait. Where did you see it that it is ‘in the queue, coming soon’ ?

What we’re looking to do is construct a URL link with parameters/attributes which would insert a phrases automatically into the app’s search box, taking the recipient directly to the specific content thus saving them the effort of having to type it.

This will have huge marketing implications.

David himself said just yesterday that it would be 6-12 months away.

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There is a workaround I can think of out of my head. it is based on whether its a public with email, whitelist etc. You would have to just make the necessary adjustment for each.

If you are using deep links for marketing purposes in order to bring users to a specific location / information inside the app, then the workaround would be to build multiple app that has various landing pages based on different scenarios. After all I cant imagine you would have that many links that you would be forwarding.

You could build 4 apps.
App #1 Sign up form, and let that drop down to the signup info sheet. Use the url from this app to bring people to this landing page.

App #2 Survey Form, And let that go to the survey signup info sheet. Use the url from this app to ask users to conduct a survey

App #3 Payment Form, And let that go to the payment sheet containing invoices. Use the url from this app to accept payment.

All your apps could look the same and have the same color and icons and logo, easily by duplicating the first one.

Finally build a master app that has all the information combined the way you want so you can see all the information combined in only one app for your personal use.

Glide allows you to build an unlimited amount of apps, why not do just that instead of waiting 6 months you can just build as many apps as you need links. and for free.

The power of glide is the ability to link multiple apps to the same spreadsheet. Remember as long as all the data is coming in the same sheet you’ve succeeded.

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How is it ideal for Garrison’s case? If he has 100 keywords to search how do you handle it?

Garrison said that he was looking for “a way in which to build a URL with certain ‘search’ query so that we can direct users to a specific screen.” he said 1 not 100. The work around I gave would fit his specific situation however, nothing is stopping him from duplicating his app 100 times if its making him money and he has a team working with. Its all up to him and the limits of glide. But so far this is the workaround for deep links whether you have 1 or 10000.

Yeah of course a workaround always has its limits, but I don’t think it would be nice UX-wise to have so many apps like what you proposed. Would need further clarification from him about this case, I’m interested in deep linking as well because I run sports news app and it would be nice to link people to that specific article I want to share, but we have like 20 of them daily and we constantly have to add new ones.

I love challenges, this sounds like a good one and I think its possible right now. using some referencing. i would have to think deeper but I believe it can be done with one app.

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I’m interested to hear if you can have suggestions for me. Thank you and have a nice week yourself. Stay safe brother.

My time is limited in free work but you may want to come up with an offer of what you would be willing to pay for a viable workaround.
Things to consider:
Deep links may be redundant. It implies that your users are not first and foremost landing on your app which they really should be. Consider which app in the app store has a deep link? None…
If they initially landed on your app then deep links wouldn’t really be necessary.

Convert your primary site to an app and then the need for deep links disappear. This is what I have done to my websites. I have taken down all my websites and pointed my domain to my glide app. I have only one place and one url to deal with, market with and then once the user is in my app then I can direct them with one click…(Especially now that glide has turned on “desktop mode”)

But if you really want to. Send me a viable offer that would motivate me to do the research…But since I don’t really need it this is where my thinking has to stop. Lol :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks for the idea, we don’t have a website here, we’re just a non profit community and does not have time to make another platform. We run on Facebook, I just want an alternative where I can format articles in Glide then directly share that to Facebook, that’s all. We’re good without it, I’m just looking for an upgrade.

Well there is a platform that does this now. Its called appsheet.com they are similiar to glide buy allowing you to build an app using google sheet. They are free to try just like glide and when you are ready you can purchase for 10 / month.

Glide is a more fluid faster platform but appsheet has much more functionality and is a little cheaper than glide. I prefer to use glide but at least you have a solution to your problem.
Good Luck

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Thanks a lot for your sharing, I highly appreciate it :grin:

@Lighted_Candle: Thank you, I really appreciate this and will look further into the workaround you propose.

A few things to address…

  • Deep links will never be redundant as remember, Glide is a PWA and not a native app. Deeplinking is actually one of the many benefits, as discoverability is one of the core aspects of the concept…
  • Sure, apps in the app store do not have deep links because they’re native apps, not PWAs. It’s important to make this distinction.

  • PWAs come in various shapes and sizes. Some of the what I would call ‘closed shop’ type Glide apps have no need for SEO, whereas apps in my field, i.e. travel accommodation directory/listings, and content generally, has a need for SEO.

  • Currently we are having to run a landing site (using WP) to get some visibility with SEO, but to also publicise our Glide app.

AppSheet is something we’ll look at, it is owned by Google so that bodes well. There are other PWA solutions we’ll look at but I absolutely love Glide and what it offers.

That being said, we need our app to be discoverable in search engines, and specifically the individual content needs to be indexed as essentially as a PWA we are competing with websites, not native apps.

It may well be, for us anyway, that we use Glide as an efficient and effective MVP to validate our initial ideas before graduating them on to a different PWA platform that can offer deep linking and other SEO benefits.

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Consider the name “Deep Link” it means that something is hidden or otherwise hard to find. Why would your article be located in a place that is not easy for the end user to get to? The answer is security, but High security for data that is public and shared easily with the world is redundant.

Deep linking is very important and essential to developers who have placed their data out of the reach of their customers and There was a time when deep linking was the only way, but technology has made it possible that we don’t need to design with that logic. To each his own but I don’t hold the deep linking Philosophy.

I’m more interested in having them enter into my app, and then I can direct them anywhere. Deep links are for feeding people outside of your app, which kid of defeats the purpose of what an app is used for in the first place. I understand why Glide does not put it on their top priority. (6 Months they say to dev)

The proof is in the pudding. Right now you are stalled in your progress toward reaching your goals with glide because you are unable to send your data outside of glide easily. But if you reverse you thinking to bringing your customer base inside of glide, you’ll be well on your way to success.

Don’t feed your customers with your glide’s data, Feed Glide with your customer’s data. All will work perfectly. The limitation is not in the app its in our ability to think differently. :slight_smile: if only Steve Jobs could here me now…:slight_smile:

@Lighted_Candle Maybe there is a misunderstanding on the definition of deep linking. Consider when you are searching through google for a news article or specific post to a forum article. Clicking on the link takes you directly to the article, whether it’s within a website or within an already installed app. It does not take you to the front page of the news organization or forum to further force you to parse through all of the articles. It takes you directly to the point of the website or app that you intended to go to. This is deep linking. To take it a step further, take Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, etc. Those are actual apps from the app store. If somebody posts a deep link, let’s say a link to a user profile, I can click on that link and it will take me directly to the user’s profile inside of the app, or in the case of Amazon, I can click on a link to a specific product and it will take me directly to the product within the app. It does not take me to the home tab of Facebook, Instagram, or Amazon for me to have to parse through thousands or millions of profiles or products. Deep linking isn’t necessarily only about bringing users to your app for the first time…it’s also for providing an added service to existing users of the app who want to directly access the specific information they want to see with a direct link. It also allows for the potential to entice new users by showing a specific article they can read for example. Basically any major social media or eCommerce business that also has an app allows for deep linking into the app. These deep links are the foundation of shared links on social media and viral advertising. I would never click on a link to MSNBC for example, but I might be more inclined to click on a link to an article that says “30 reasons why politics suck”. In @garrison’s case, I might be enticed by a deep link to an accommodation that’s available for a reduced price in Cancun. I wouldn’t want to click on a random travel site link, but I might be more inclined if that link is for something that peaked my interest. If I did click on a travel site that advertised a sale, I might lose interest if I have to “find it myself” out of hundreds of other accommodations that may be promoting a similar sale.

You may not have a specific need for it in your case, but that doesn’t mean that other people don’t. It doesn’t hurt for someone to ask about it, because some people have a genuine need…and there is nothing wrong with giving alternative solutions with the tools we have at our disposal right now. Unfortunately one solution doesn’t always fit for every type of user.

Who know’s where something like this is placed in Glide’s road-map. Maybe soon, maybe not. All I know is that Glide has pumped out hundreds of new features in the past yeah and a half and none of us can say we haven’t jumped on any of the new features to make our apps better. That’s why we have this forum to discuss, ask, bounce ideas, and encourage each other to succeed. Not only for us the user’s, but also for Glide as a whole to drive interest and innovation.

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Everything @Jeff_Hager has stated above is bang on!

The limitation is with Glide in this case, though I’m sure they will address this in due course especially as there are similar other solutions out there already doing this, and more will come I’m sure.

Not sure if @Lighted_Candle got this nuance but the problem is Glide is touting itself as a PWA, and by definition (as outlined by the Google dude in the video I posted) they should be discoverable via the web.

So we are currently at a huge disadvantage with Glide, in its present form, as we’re trying to compete with websites which all have their content indexed and accessible via search engines.

For the record, I do think differently hence why I have created landing pages which are indexable by search engines to lead people to my Glide app.

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That was a very good explanation of deep link. @Jeff_Hager. But this is not about whether or not deep link has its application and use. But consider the sheer size of those websites you listed.

  1. First and foremost Glide has a 20k record limit in pro. Need I say more.
  2. Glide has to fetch our data like a middle man and is not directly linked with a database. (For our use anyways)
  3. Google sheets also has a record call and put limit in their app scripts.

By the time you are ready to Need deep linking like Facebook, Instagram, Amazon you would have outgrown Glide and would need another setup. Glide is not scaleable without limit.

@garrison My point is that the general user base in glide is focused on getting the users in the app and not the data out the app. You are trying to turn glide in a Facebook, or amazon and that is not it’s purpose. So when you suggest the Big Guns for such a little app (Respectfully) it makes it obvious you are using the wrong platform for your needs.

This is like trying to argue the importance of having a Bed on a car when you could just go and buy a pickup truck. Deep linking in glide is redundant (Similiar to having calculations in glide (But that’s another argument :slight_smile: ), however deep linking on a platform that has 6 million users worldwide is mandatory.

It doesn’t make sense for glide to focus their limited resources to encourage people to think in that manner, considering that the majority of their end users don’t even know what a deep link is? I would prefer glide to focus their resources on things we really need now for “In App” use like.
A. The abilty to capture GPS data in the spreadsheet to create geofencing or Log location of an entry
B. Barcode Scanning
C. Signatures
These are all worthwhile things that are essential for the little man, focused on the In app User experience. Most of us have no intention of sharing our data outside the app.

Technically…
Glide currently has deep linking. its just that your app is the deep link. So what you are asking for is a deep link in a deep link. I give people my domain name and Boom! just like magic, they are in my app. Thanks for your perspective, and sharing of your thoughts.

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