Is there any way for users to create password prior signing in?

[BenzYaputra]

I want to create a service app but I need the user to be able create a password prior to signing in? is there any way I can do that? Thanks!

[Jeff_Hager]

Glide doesn’t use a password for per user sign in unless you are using the password privacy setting. Even then, it’s a shared password for all users. Why do you need them to create a password before attempting to sign into the app?

[BenzYaputra]

I want to create a public app where they can purchase stuffs through the app, so hoping to have an extra layer of security?

[Jeff_Hager]

So you are looking to only use one app that’s set to Public, but have a password protected section inside of it? You can do something like that if you look at this post. You would just have to create a new column in the data tab for your “admin” sheet that is set to ‘User Specific’. Then create an if then column that checks the entered value and sets true or false if the value matches. You can use the if then column to then set visibility on other components that are only accessible to the user that enters the correct password. Unfortunately you can’t allow the user to set their own password.

If you aren’t using a lot of rows and are using the free version of Glide, you can create a second admin app, but I’m not a big fan of using two apps for various reasons.

There is another method that I’m currently discussing with Glide that would be much better, but I want to wait and see what they say first.

Edit: forgot to post the link to the post I was referring to.

[UPDATED] Buffalo Burger

Hey All Features updated: Deleted all sheet formulas and substituted on Data! (That’s dope) So that, thanks @Jeff_Hager tips, I was using and Arrayformula to creat my sales order ID. Now, everything on Data (That’s licky) Last, I deleted one tab which was doubling the number of orders rows. Again with formulas. Deleted completely. (Yeah, Glide’s power) Update Benefits: Less 50% orders rows App’s Speed: summoned to participate in Fast and Furious Hungry? Starving? Take a look i…

[Jeff_Hager]

This is the other method, but I’m still not sure if it’s officially supported.

I’m still waiting to hear back if this can officially be supported or if the workaround will be supported long-term, but hopefully this helps.

Create public and private version of app for admin

So here’s the thing. There is a way to do this, but it doesn’t appear to be officially supported so I try to avoid suggesting it. If you set your app to public with email, then you can apply any settings that require ‘signed in user’. Then if you change your app back to public, it will be publicly accessible, but you can sign in via the side menu and the ‘signed in user’ parts should work as set up. The only thing is, you have to change your privacy setting any time you want to add per user …

Here’s how to get signed in user info into every record in your sheet.

List Relation "Data"

BAM! I figured it out. First create an If/Then column on the user profile sheet that fills the column with the word ‘Name’ if signed in user. [image] Next, on every sheet you want to display the name: Create a template column that contains the word ‘Name’. Create a relation column that joins the name template to the name template in the user profile sheet. Create a lookup column that gets the name from the relation. Bonus - make it look pretty. [image] [image]

[BenzYaputra]

I think this one can do it! Let me try to use this method first. Thanks a bunch Jeff!

[forsdick]

Jeff, do you by any chance have a demo app that we can examine to see how it works and then adapt (some of) the code in our own app?

[Jeff_Hager]

Honestly this post is quite old in Glide’s lifecycle and quite a lot has changed since then. Some of the methods mentioned above are not secure at all and quite a few new features have been introduce since then to make almost everything mentioned above obsolete. I would recommend a Public app with a Sign In button or Sign In action if you need to have the user sign in at a later time after accessing the app. I’m not sure which of my posts your are referring to @forsdick, but as far as fake ‘password’ protection, I would recommend reading the Security Center https://docs.glideapps.com/all/guides/security-center for best practices for proper security practices.

[forsdick]

I agree, Jeff, that hacks that take advantage of some undocumented feature should be avoided.

Your comment referring to the difficulty in referring to methods of programming in Glide’s lifecycle is a problem I have encountered often when trying to learn how to build apps in Glide. I think this is an understandable result from the openness of the Glide team has shown in putting stuff out there and then making improvements to it. When searching previous comments, it’s hard to know when you are finding something that is no longer relevant because of a subsequent improvement. This suggests two things need to happen to improve the learning process:

1. There needs to be some mechanism in the community comment procedure to annotate posts that refer to old ways of doing things in Glide with references to the improved way to do the same thing. There also needs to be some restriction as to who can make such annotations so that newbees are assured that corrections are coming from experienced Glide developers.

2. Somebody or some group of bodies (either inside or outside of Glide employees) needs to start a document to augment the official Glide reference manual to describe how to implement standard high-level parts of Glide apps. This would be a book of recipes about how to do things in Glide. It could be a collection of the many short videos various people have created on YouTube about various Glide implementation examples – but with one difference: In addition to the group that created new recipes, there should be a group of editors whose job is to ensure the integrity of the recipes in light of new features that have been added to Glide.

I realize this could be interpreted as doing the business of the developers of Glide, but I get the sense in the last 10 years that such tutorial guides are no longer the exclusive responsibility of the developers of a product (e.g., “The Missing Guide” series by David Pogue) but that quite frequently this is an area where users of a product have a better perspective or even talent for producing such a guide than the implementors of a product.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself here and so I will stop and wait for reactions of other Glide enthusiasts.

Regards,

– Harry

[Jeff_Hager]

I hear ya. But, there are at least 70,000+ posts (by my estimate) in this forum with just under a year and a half of this forum being active, so it would be hard to filter through and see what’s relevant anymore. I think the amount of man hours to check if something is still relavant would be outrageous and would require some sort of advanced AI to process that much information.

In my opinion, I would take anything that’s 1 to 2 months old or more with a grain of salt. Glide evolves quite rapidly and I think a lot of that evolution is due to community participation and what people want and ask for at a particular moment. Also, people’s understanding of Glide’s underlying workings and security has changed quite a bit as we have learned more and more. These changes and understandings are reflected in how we respond to these questions.

In my spare time I’ll search for a lot of technology related content on google, and a lot of the time, I will only filter content that’s no more than a month old. Like Glide, all technology evolves at a rapid pace, so in most cases I’m not interested in reading anything that can potentially be obsolete. Also, in this forum, I think a lot of questions come up over and over, so in a lot of cases, there may be newer and updated answers to questions that were similarly asked months ago. Every once in a while someone will ‘like’ one of my old posts. After rereading that post, I’m secretly happy when it’s still relavant, but scared when they like some technique that I suggested a long time ago, but no longer applies.

I think what Glide really needs to do is lock a thread after a month or two if it’s no longer active. I’ve seen that happen in other forums. It won’t stop people from reading the content, as there is still a lot of relavant information out there, but it might force them to start a new thread with their current problem, which will hopefully spark new discussion of how to handle something with the current feature set.

As for your suggestions:

1. There is a feature in the forum, that when a user references another post, it will create a reference link from the old post to the new post, so if you come across something with that link, you have the opportunity to jump to the other newer thread to see what’s being discussed. But that only works as long as user is diligent in creating those references, and only if they take the time to search though and look for old related posts. Also, if you create a new topic, the forum will show you possible related posts that it feels may be related to the question you are about to ask.

2. There has been discussion on creating a central location for user created tutorials and references. That has led to the creation of the Sheet Magic, FAQ, Resources & Templates, and Tutorials categories, which can be useful if you look exclusively at those categories, but in time they can also become abused and anybody will post any question they want in those categories, regardless if it fits the category’s purpose or not. In theory, it’s a good idea, but still, requires diligence from the user to use the system properly, populate it with good content, and keep it updated. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.

In the end, my suggestion is just to read as many posts as you can, whether or not it’s related to what you are working on at the time. By simply reading and participating by trying to help others, I’ve learned quite a lot and you start to recognize patterns of what works and doesn’t work, what you can and can’t do, and overall, the general rules that guide how Glide works. Sometimes you also learn the little tricks that people use here and there.

I totally get what you are saying, but in the end it’s hard to moderate content that made sense and worked at the time, but is no longer relavant with current features and understanding.

[Darren_Murphy]

@Jeff_Hager

In the end, my suggestion is just to read as many posts as you can, whether or not it’s related to what you are working on at the time. By simply reading and participating by trying to help others, I’ve learned quite a lot and you start to recognize patterns of what works and doesn’t work, what you can and can’t do, and overall, the general rules that guide how Glide works. Sometimes you also learn the little tricks that people use here and there.

I’m quite positive that the process of participating and attempting to answer questions has greatly accelerated my own learning curve. Looking at other people’s challenges and helping them find solutions forces you to think and try new things. Every now and then I’ll stick my foot in my mouth, but I just view that as a part of the learning process

[Pablo_books]

@Jeff_Hager

scared when they like some technique that I suggested a long time ago, but no longer applies.

Now who in the world would do that?

[Cisco_Muratalla]

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