I haven’t tested that out myself. @slscustom.ru could probably confirm that. From what I’m reading, that seems to be the case now, but I believe in the past, it would cost an update. I’d have to try it before I can say for sure.
This one is tricky. A session variable column would be an advanced feature.
Glide is striving to make it really easy to build apps. Let’s take for instance computed columns computing on the user’s device, or rows with row ownership applied, or the confusion between row ownership and user specific columns: none of these things are easy. Even relations are a difficult concept I find. On the one hand I think we would all agree that these features are needed, on the other I wouldn’t be surprised if only a low percentage of Gliders use them well.
Advanced features are a nice platform design challenge for Glide: providing the features yet somehow making the difficulty invisible to the developer and making their usage unbelievably easy.
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That feels like a potential solution for this
I can’t use Glide at a large scale if I need to pay 10$ per user and with a low control over the operational costs.
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I personally think the solution is to have tiered bundle prices for extra updates.
So if i’m on the $25 starter plan and i want to buy extra updates, there could be options such as: $10 for 1000 updates, $15 for 2000 updates, $25 for 4000 updates, $35 for 7000 updates
So i can pay $25 for the starter plan and if need be, i can buy updates at increasingly cheaper rates. (eg. $25+$35=$60 for 7000 updates)
OR… i could Jump to the $99 price plan where updates would cost even less per update, for example: $10 for 3000 updates, $25 for 10000 updates, $50 for 30000 updates.
I get to stress less about app costs while my business is growing and Glide is happy to get $60 dollars from a user that cannot quite yet afford/justify the $99 price plan.
Glide may look at it as they make a loss for giving away 30000 updates for $99+$50 =$149 (when they could have charged $249 for only 25000 updates) But the reality is if users don’t have a little extra help getting their business off the ground, then Glide gets nothing and an opportunity is lost for both parties (remember - 90% of something is better than 100% of nothing.)
These extra price ranges would enable all users to find a price band that suits their needs at each stage of their growth. Glide gets to incentivise more spending by its users, and all users can use all features without stressing about the high cost of updates.
ALTERNATIVELY: just charge $3 per 1000 updates for pay as you go - on the Business plan.
Please could someone confirm that the $799 price plan offers unlimited updates? The chat bot told me that, i’m hoping that’s still true.
(I know this thread is for the Session variable column - but i’m pretty sure the real issue has to do with update costs)
No, it doesn’t.
I believe there are multiple enterprise tiers, each with it’s own limits. Maybe the top tier has unlimited updates - I don’t know about that.
In video game design, we try to make the experience “easy to learn, hard to master” (the Bushnell’s Law). I could imagine a “session variable” check once I checked “Column is user specific”, or at least in the same “configuration” section. The access to this option could probably be available to Pro tiers with a limited number of variable for free to try it out. There are already a bunch of pretty advanced features in Glide (Javascript, Json parsing, User specific, HTML in rich text …).
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I’d trust the pricing page more than the bot. The pricing page says “custom number of updates”.
Based on current pricing, you’d probably get around 80k updates per month + 1k updates for every $10. Would be interesting if they reduced the price per update to less than a $0.01 depending on how many you consumed.
AI can only do so much. It is a robot after all. If you followed a few months ago when the AI would offer help in the forum, it made up features that didn’t exist 83.7% of the time. Just like I made up that stat. Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t always make it true.
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It gets many technical questions right, found it very helpful. Might be hallucinating though. I tried looking for my original message where i think i asked support if it was correct, maybe i was hallucinating, nevertheless i still treat updates like fuel for the vehicle, a necessary cost to drive the app and earn money from it.
I’m still hoping the session variable column will reduce dynamic search costs, its about $0.05 just to click 5 choice tags for a dynamic search and i’ve got multi-choice dynamic search as well so it could be $0.25 for a single search. Hope they find what they are searching for before i go broke.
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It’s been Over a year and still counting. But I still have hope. If they made apps without code possible, they could definitely do this.
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Not the best solution, but the way around it that I found was:
- Keep the app privacy as public
- Control the login yourself (username and password) as a form component and user-specific column.
- Make all the sensitive data/components visibility dependable on the login screen
- Hide the login screen from navigation
It is very demanding on the setup of the app and not reeally secure, but it works.
I reduced the updates of my app 96% because of the search using the form component.
I understand that you are trying to reduce updates, but I would never make a homegrown login procedure. Under no circumstances is it going to be secure. You’re basically exposing all of your user’s usernames and passwords to those that know how to find them.
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Hi all. I really need refresh some variables or fields when the app start, logged. When my landing page start I need some fields be cleared, before any user interaction.
With an action triggered when some page are show must be enough to do that.
Any news about user cockies or refreshed fields or something like this?
None. We keep on waiting ang hoping 
Overall Glide does a great job at keeping things simple. Or at least keeping things simple on the surface and taking care of complexity under the hood, hidden out of sight. In my opinion, a session variable column would not go in that direction. Though I understand the need for a session variable, the implementation of such a feature would need to be simple for the developer, and I don’t think such a column aligns with Glide’s overall mission of making nocode development accessible to all.
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A user specific column already acts as a session variable column as long as you are not signed in. When you are not signed in, the values in a user specific column are not synced or stored on the Glide server database and thus do not count against any update quota. They are also automatically wiped out when the app is closed, which some people prefer.
This request is only asking to extend that same existing functionality to apps with signed in users. In some cases we are forced to create custom search, forms, or navigation to make our apps more functional for our needs, which in most cases is only needed for a small group of us. Glide could enhance existing search, forms and navigation, and I hope they do, but at the same time it may not satisfy everybody’s specific use case and arguably could make things more complicated. A session variable column is a simple solution that could satisfy several different needs.
I would image it would be the same process as adding a user specific column. It could be as simple as a couple of radio buttons when adding a column that let you choose between a basic, user specific, or session column. The only difference is that a column marked as a session variable column will not sync to the backend and will clear out when the app is closed. Exactly how a user specific column works now when you are not signed in to an app. A simple solution that opens up a wide variety of possibilities for further customization for power users.
I don’t think it’s necessary to incur updates for values that are only temporary and have no purpose being stored long term in the database. I need custom forms to do things a native form cannot. I use a choice component or buttons to set a value to simply control component visibility on the same screen. Some people need custom search and filtering. Some people need values that are reset when they close and reopen an app.
I think this could be something simple that won’t be complicated short of making new users aware of when and when not to use it. New users are just as confused when it comes to user specific columns, so it’s nothing that proper documentation couldn’t solve.
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Totally agree. Still there is hope they will find a way to make that simple but possible
I totally agree with the basic premise that a session variable would be useful. Or at least, what the session variable would allow would be useful. I just question to whom it would be useful. Power users probably: a few hundred, maybe a few thousand? Glide has made clear they want to address a huge market.
So many users don’t understand the difference between global and user-specific basic columns. We see this all the time in the forum. It’s not a documentation issue, it’s a product design issue. One might argue there’s a limit to how simple one can design the product. Well, to reach one billion users it better be very, very simple. I don’t see how adding yet a third type of basic column – data would stick not based on the user but on a session – could simplify things. I personally find this stuff very complicated. I would wrap my head around it eventually, but I try to put myself in the shoes of millions of others who might not (because of constraints such as time, effort, willingness, …).
It is a shame that we need to rely on user-specific columns for custom forms and navigation and whatnot. To me all of this is smart but it’s trickery, it’s a pricing issue and an issue with native forms, search and so one. Using user-specific columns is rebuilding functionalities that are otherwise still limited. Obviously I say this not having the deep understanding that others, and you in particular Jeff, might have of Glide.
To me, Glide is to nocode delopment what Canva is to design. Many would scoff at this and argue that Canva doesn’t do design, merely basic collage. This is precisely the reason I use Canva and never liked Photoshop where most people only use a tiny amount of all available features. I think it would be a shame if Glide became more of a Photoshop and less of a Canva.
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