How to reduce number of columns?

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1

Hi,

Do you have methods to check if columns are really necessary or if you’re taking 2-3-4-5-more columns to do something that you could do in a simpler way?

I feel like I often need 2-3-4 columns to create a work around but I don’t know if it’s a workaround because Glide can’t do what I have in mind or because I don’t know how to use a specific functionality.

Thanks ! :smiling_face:

2

It’s hard to give a general answer to that question.
Quite often a single JavaScript column can do the work of several other columns.
Other than that, if you have some specific examples we might be able to help.

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3

This reminds me of a special moment in Glide history:

followed by

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4

That is INSANE. :scream: And absolutely beautiful. Thanks for sharing!

5

Often there are ways to use fewer columns but it all depends on what you are trying to do as mentioned above. Give us an example and I’m sure you’ll get an answer.

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@Darren_Murphy , @DarrenHumphries you’re absolutely right, hard to be specific without an example!!

Here’s one:

I’ve been building a “novels series progress tracking” app so that I know which books I need to buy, what I should read next etc.

To sort the books in an order that I like, I needed to create a column to match what I wanted which is basically : series alphabetical order AND tomes order (with prequel first and sequel at the end) ; standalones are not taken into account for this.

So for each book, I have a column with the number of the book (1, 2, 3) or Prequel or Sequel or empty if standalone. I also have a column for “part” as Stormlight Archives are so huge each volume is divided into two books (for example).

First, I created an Excel column to get the book number into a 000 format otherwise books would be in order 1, 10, 11,…, 2, 20, 21,… .
Next, I have a IfThenElse column so that the prequel gets 000 and sequel get 1.
Finally, I have a template column which is ABCD, A for the serie, B for the number in 000 format, C for the IfThenElse prequel/sequel column, D for the part.
I get something like “Foundation000A” for the first prequel of Asimov’s Foundation series.

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Another example is that I want to filter out other editions of a book I own. So :

  • Each literary work gets its own ID (No matter the edition of Sanderson’s Elantris, they all get the same ID).
  • I have a relation column to match all different editions of a book based on that ID.
  • Then, I have a IfThenElse column “if owned is checked then true, otherwise false”.
  • Then, a Look Up column that goes through the relation one to bring all trues and falses of an ID (I tried to look up the trues for the “Is owned” column but it gets only one result, not all of them so the column to the left is needed…)
  • IfThenElse column "if Look Up column contains true, then “Book is already owned”. Else, “Book isn’t in the library”
  • IfThenElse column to create a personalized filter “If owned is checked, then true. If x column contains “Book is already owned”, then true. Else, false”

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And these are not the most complicated ones. I think the most complicated ones are the ones related to statistics as I want stats per genre…

(My message is long and I’m sorry for it. Please know that while writing it I found how to simplify some things in the process :nerd_face:)

Thanks for any idea you might have! :slight_smile:

7

First, good choices in books!

I would say that what you have is perfectly fine and doesn’t really need to be refined, IMO. While there may be quite a few columns to achieve what you want they don’t look to be overly processor intensive, so it isn’t likely you will have scaling issues.

An example of something that should be refined is in something like breaking down a date column. You can take a date, split it into an array and then separate columns for month, day, year so you can add one month or 7 days and recombine to a date. This is MUCH better handled using a math column.

I think you’re good with what you have…but happy to hear what others think.

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