I am currently trying out Glide, and I am building a very simple app for invoice creation so I can learn the functions, and I have encountered a challenge with the form components. I’ve successfully created a “Relation” column and a “Lookup” column in my “Invoices” table to pull customer names from my “Customers” table. However, I am unable to use this “Lookup” column to populate a choice component within a form. The objective is to allow users to select a customer name from a dropdown when creating a new invoice.
Here is a video link of a screen recording, where I explain my problem.
Here are the specific steps I’ve taken:
Created a “Relation” column in the “Invoices” table, linking to the “Customers” table by a unique identifier.
Added a “Lookup” column in the “Invoices” table to display customer names from the “Relation” column.
Attempted to change the field type of the “Name” entry in the form to a “Choice” component that uses the “Lookup” column as its source, but the column doesn’t appear in the dropdown menu.
What I need help with:
Making the “Lookup” column available as a source for the choice component in the form builder.
Understanding if there are limitations based on my current Glide plan or if there’s a step I might have missed.
Could you please guide me through enabling a dropdown choice in my form that lists customer names from the “Lookup” column, or suggest an alternative approach within Glide’s capabilities?
Can you explain that in a bit more detail please mate, I am just a beginner (about 6hrs in) that’s learning as I go.
I understand if you don’t have time though.
I cannot replicate what you have there.
When I try to create a new form, the form is locked to my “invoices” data table as a target table. I think this is why I cannot change any of the components within the form.
Please someone help, I have been at this same step for DAYS!!!
What I want is very simple too!
the app is very simple app, it simply has a function to add a new customer (saved onto a “customers” data sheet), and I am trying to make another function that creates an invoice for a customer from the list (these invoices will be stored in the “invoices” data table).
Can someone please give me guidance on how to achieve this? Every time I add a form onto the “invoice creation” screen the form is locked to the “invoices” data table and every component is just text entry, I cant make it be anything else!?!
Here is a video. It explains what I want, and you guys will be able to see that I maybe have something setup incorrectly.
That selects the Form Container, and then you will be able to change the target table at the top right.
Glide will give you a default set of input components based on the columns it finds in the target table. But you don’t have to keep any of them. You can delete any that you don’t need, and you can add new ones by clicking the “plus” at the top of the component list.
If you change the target of the form, that changes which table the data is written to when the form is submitted, so it does serve a very important function. You are not locked to a table. With a form, you can choose any table to write data to.
As for the components in the form, if you want a choice component, then add a choice component. If you want a text entry or number entry to type in data, then add those respective components.
Nothing is locked. You have the freedom to add any components you want to the form.
Ok Im getting there haha, although I have stumbled upon another problem. Check out this video, is this a bug? I do not understand why it is not showing up.
Hi, I just had a look at your last recording #342.
Once you add the form container (which is an inline form on your screen), for the dropdown you should be adding a “Choice” component.
In your video, you scrolled past that choice component. That components panel has about 40 components in it, they serve various purposes. Of course you could not know from the outset which component you were looking for, you don’t know what you don’t know. The names of the components are usually self-explanatory. The component you were looking for happens to not be called “Dropdown” (it could have been so) but “Choice”, because as an entry component it allows the user to choose something.
If you’re learning by doing as you go along, that’s a great way to learn. You could for instance try all the components to see what each one does.
You could also head over to Glide Docs and browse through topics of interest. I’ll put a few links for you below:
You found the choice component, that’s progress. You don’t seem to be adding that choice component neither to a form container, nor to a form screen. In the configuration panel on the right, those should be called “Form container” or “Form” respectively.
Add the form screen or form container (inline form) first, then make sure these are adding rows to the table you want (configuration on the right), then add the entry components you want and configure each of these component individually. Selection of a tab or screen component is done in the left panel, configuration of the tab or component is done on the right.
(In your video, the data source of your choice component is a relation. If the choice component is not displaying anything, then your relation is probably empty. Though you have a bigger problem first: work on a form screen or form container.)
The reason I am not using a form is because of the “submit” button. Once the data is input into a form, this data is placed into a row in the target data table. Then if there is another form on the next screen and you input info/data, and press submit again, then this data is placed into THE NEXT ROW DOWN on the target data table. I DO NOT WANT THIS.
What I want is the 1st screen information to fill out row 1, column 1 of the data table (Customer details), this should be a drop down menu of the list of customers from the customers table (via the the customer relation on the invoices table).
Then once the info on screen 1 is selected, the user moves onto screen 2 (the cost to be input into the invoice) and the info should go into row 1 column 2.
Then the info from screen 3 is to be written to row 1 column 3 etc etc.
If I use a form on each screen, then the data from screen 1 goes into row 1 column 1, and the data from screen 2 (or form 2) goes into row 2 column 2, and then the data on screen 3 (or form 3) goes into row 3, column 3.
So you can see why I don’t want use a form.
What you should do is use an onSubmit action with your first form that does Show Edit Screen → This item. This will open an edit screen attached to the row that has just been added. You can do the same thing with any additional edits. Although I’m not sure why you wouldn’t do it all on a single screen?
Back to your most recent video, the reason why your choice component doesn’t appear on the screen is because the source column (the relation) is empty.
The source column is empty but the relation that the column is related to is not empty.
Also. I do not want the whole form in one screen. My design is to break up the data filling into 3 or more screens.
It really is simple, and I don’t understand why it is so difficult
Actually, just thinking about this a bit more, if you want to spread your edits across multiple screens, then you will have a bit of a challenge if you try to use an Edit screen at each step. This is because the layout of an Edit screen is bound to the underlying table. What this means is that whichever set of components you add to the edit screen, you’ll see those same set of components every time you open that screen. In your case, you want a different set of components (presumably) at each step. So what you’ll most likely need to do is group your components in containers, and then set a “step” value in the underlying table and use that to control container visibility. It’s a bit fiddly, but it works. The alternative option would be to use a series of Show New Screen → This item actions. But that gets even more fiddly.
I am so confused right now.
Thinking of giving up.
It’s a simple function that I want to add. Can someone please explain but in beginner terms. I’m completely lost and it’s making me.very depressed
ok done that, but again when the submit button is pressed to move to the next screen, it does not populate the customer details column within the “invoices” table
