Problem: I want to create a Glide app to edit the information in tables used in an app I have developed. This needs to be comfortable for non-technical people, not me, the developer.
I have in the past developed an app for selecting records (rows) in a table and displaying that information nicely on a smartphone.
I used Glide forms when I wanted to introduce new records (rows) to the collection.
Let’s call my app MyApp. I would like to create another app named MyAppEdit which I can use to edit the rows of any table used in MyApp.
Since I last used Glide several years ago, I now see a standard “pencil” control when in app development in the upper right corner of the smartphone simulation screen. It appears to allow me when in app development mode to change the values in the table associated with that app.
Questions:
Is there documentation for this control and if so, where is it located?
Is there a mechanism for creating a form that would allow me to see and edit all of the columns of a row in one integrated smartphone display? I would be able to go through all of the rows of the table and see a visual table display of all of the columns of a row and change any value I wanted. It would be great if I could, for any app “MyApp”, easily build an app “MyAppEdit” which would:
Allow me to choose one of the multiple tables used by “MyApp”.
For that table, allow me to go through each of the rows of the selected table to see the values (cells) in each of the columns presented (possibly) annotated with the longer description of the value. It would also let me change the value in any of the cells in a row.
First up, as you mentioned you haven’t used Glide for several years, I assume you were using Classic Apps to develop your solution. Classic Apps will be sunset at some point in the near future, the main product now is the new Glide Apps (formerly called Glide Pages).
This is correct for Classic Apps, you can also add a button to show the edit screen to get the same effect.
Sounds like you want a solution to edit multiple rows at a time, in a single component. That is what the data grid component can do.
Thank you for your reply. This raises a couple of questions:
Do you know where there is documentation about what I have to do to move my apps from Classic Apps to Glide Apps? I clearly need to make this investment to benefit from continued improvements to Glide.
There are two types of people my “Lexington by Foot and Phone” app is aimed: First, tourists coming to Lexington who want to taking one of 8 walking tours of the town. The second group are people who want to create walking tours of, say, their home town. For the first group, there is no data input and so the smartphone interface I currently have is fine. For the second group, I still am dealing with a non-technical group. The Glide Developer’s interface is still too complex for them and there is too many unnecessary things in the developers interface that I. That’s why I thought that a support app, with the standard smartphone interface would be better.
In another Classic app (Cards) I developed for use only by me because I couldn’t figure out how to do access control, I used forms to allow me to add rows as well as modify column cells for existing rows is several of the tables used by the app. This works quite well for this simple app, but I had to do explicit programming to make this happen.
What I was hoping for was the ability to create an app that would automatically support viewing and editing the input tables (under suitable access control). In Cards, the interface to editing a card is built right into the visualization app – and this would be the way I’d love to see all of my apps work.
Any ideas you have for either or both of the two questions are most welcome. Thanks!
There’s a “New App from data” option when you use the hamburger menu for Classic Apps on your dashboard, but that’s about it. They only preserve the data, not the frontend design, since the component structure on the new Glide Apps is different.
Can you tell us what’s complex for them? What components should be changed to make it easier for them to use your app?
Sounds like something’s wrong. You can use User Profiles values to configure conditional visibility, it’s straightforward.
Again, there are actions for that (Show edit screen) that won’t require you to have a second app. You can just show that edit button to people who should see that button, i.e an Admin role.
