Hello everyone, I just want to share these simple tests I’m creating because I think they can help the community. I created an app called Minimaker Labs, is just a sandbox to test some ideas and Glide features. https://thelab.glideapp.io
Right now I have 2 pages running:
Transend - Translate text and send it to any telephone number via SMS or Whatsapp
I used the Google Sheet function “GOOGLETRANSLATE” to translate (obviously) the text the user inputs.
To send SMS with the body using the translated text I had to change the button from “Send Message” action to just URL and added this: “sms://[phone-number]?&body=[text]”
For whatsapp: “https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=[phone-number]&text=[text]”
I also created a “contextual button”, if the phone number is blank, the “Send” buttons will be hidden and the visible button will show “Enter Phone First”.
Gas Prices - Show the gas stations, prices and address for the selected location.
I used “IMPORTXML” to dynamically import the gas price data from an URL that uses the city choice as a parameter.
The only downside right now is the delay when someone changes a city or add/edit text to translate.
Let me know what you think, if you have any cool idea to built with these features or want to suggest something for me to test in the “Lab”.
How is your ‘Set Phone Number First’ button set up? How do you have it so clicking on it does nothing?
I also like how you are using the URL to set the sms link. I suppose this would work for emails too, where you could have the subject and body prefilled.
Yep, I’ve tested with emails (mailto) before, this “Translate to sms” idea in fact came from an app idea I had before for professionals trying to become expats: Cover Letter Translator and “sender”(using email), but I couldn’t trust the translation.
About the “Set Phone…” button, I created a row with “#” so it is an empty link and glide doesn’t try to open the web view. Than I set the visibility to “when [phone-number] is empty” (btw I was impressed with the fast response, the moment you start typing the phone number, the “disabled” button disappears.
A way to handle buttons states and styles would be a great feature for Glide, especially for the “Delete” button. The way it’s done right now, the user is more likely to click the big delete button than the small “Done” in the corner when trying to edit an entry using forms (maybe “Save” or “Edit” would also be better in this case).
Definitely agree about the delete button (or add a confirmation for delete action).
For the sms function you’ve mentioned, do you know a way to send to multiple numbers at once? In a cell, if numbers are separated by a comma, I can send to multiple numbers at once with a button, but can’t set a body message. Do you know if your syntax can be used for multiple numbers?
Yes, without the confirmation dialog I think that this will be a big problem, but right now the UX is not great. I’ve tested with 8 users last week and 7 have clicked “Delete” when trying to Edit, than they read all the dialog text and realize that it’s not the right button. I think that the most important action for forms is “Submit” or “Edit” (Done), but delete is the biggest cta. Also, ergonomically, the button on the bottom of the screen is easier to click than the right corner (at least for me).
Thanks @david! It’s impressive how fast you ship ship new features and changes to make Glide better. I stoped using for a month or so and was amazed when I came back! Congrats you have a true fan
I was trying to help @eltintero with his app and just implemented that to test some stuff.
I created the original text in Portuguese and used Google Translate formula to translate to English (All in the same row in this case, but can be done using multiple rows also). Then I used “visibility” rules and “choice” component to handle what appears on the screen.
Right now I think that is the best solution for multi-language apps because the Google Translate formula run only one time, instantly changing what is on the screen. /
Wow, it’s so fast!
I’m trying to do it as well, but it takes a while.
I have a column in EN and a column in ES, and depending on the choice, it loads either or.
/ 
