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Hello AppSheet Community,
One of the team’s goals is to make it easier for all app creators to build applications by bringing focus to the core concepts and tasks and by providing information and “shortcuts” in the relevant context. We rolled out some of these changes in October and shared this initial announcement.
We’re now excited to announce 2 new updates are starting to roll out today. They are follow-ups to the October changes.
First, we’re introducing a secondary navigation that lets you see at a quick glance all your components - whether we’re talking about is your data, your views, format rules, actions and automation components. This should also let you access any individual component more quickly.
As part of this change, suggestions will be available for all components and will be more targeted based on the context you are in (e.g. which Table you are creating a Format Rule for). You’ll also notice that error and warning messages are now shown via a status icon that is always visible in the header.
Secondary navigation menu (left) and Error & Warning status in header bar (top right)
Second, in the same spirit as earlier changes and to be able to make a specific edit to your app without jumping into a different context, there are more direct links in your View component to the table, column or action that you want to check or edit. For example, when you are working on a Deck View, you should not need to click 3, 4 or even 5 times just to check the settings of a column or of an action. This should make more obvious what is possible, especially for users who are new to AppSheet, and make navigation throughout your app components faster.
GIF showing accessing relevant components quickly and editing them on the fly
The secondary navigation menu and its associated changes will be available to everyone. Similarly to the primary navigation menu rolled out in October, you can revert to the legacy navigation patterns if you’re facing an issue. Details are in the FAQ section below.
Let us know if you have any feedback.
Thank you
The AppSheet Team
FAQ
How do I opt in and out of the navigational changes?
App creators can currently opt-in and out of the navigation changes at will. The changes apply to the App Editor experience, independent of the app you are editing. You can opt in and out by clicking on this icon in the top navigation bar.
Is there some documentation?
Yes, we’re updating the relevant pages in our documentation. We’re also introducing a new page that summarizes the changes across the Editor. See Summary of improvements in the app editor (preview).
Where do I report issues and provide feedback?
Contact Support or directly in this thread.
Are you planning on maintaining the two navigation models?
Long term, no, we’re moving towards the new navigational model. For the next few months, we will support both navigation models as we make additional changes to how people navigate through the Editor. We want to work out the kinks before it becomes the only one.
When will the legacy navigational model be unavailable?
We don’t have a hard set date on this. That will depend on how fast we can work out the kinks in the new navigation.
Why don’t I see anything yet?
We’re rolling out these changes progressively and it might take a few days to a few weeks before you can see them in your own account.
I provided some feedback on the previous changes (from October). Are you taking it into account?
We did read the feedback provided by our community. We may not have addressed it yet - whether it’s making an update or it’s deciding not to make any changes.
@Arthur_Rallu, in my AppSheet account that has the new editor UI, the "With these inputs" property does not appear as expected for an "Execute an action on a set of rows" action whose "Referenced Action" property has selected an action that uses the INPUT function. The issue exists regardless of whether I switch the app editor to the legacy UI.
The exact same scenario indeed still works as expected in my AppSheet account that has not yet received the new editor UI:
Hi everyone. This is my experience and opinion about the new changes.
First of all, I think this is so much easier and quicker to create apps than the previous version, but it has some bugs and parts I would change:
1. The responsive of tables isn't working properly, it should fill all my screen
2. Format rules should be a tab next to views. It was complicated to me to find it
3. A little bit more space for system generated views
4. As it is on the Views section, I think that system generated actions should be separated from the created ones
5. As someone have also posted, the most of the configuration of a bot is done on a minimum space on the screen. It doesn't make sense
6. when errors, we have can't find quickly where it is. Something like this, would help: (Mark on red colour the table/view/whatever is wrong)
Thanks a lot for all your work and I hope my point of view is helpful
Hi @marizmelo
Here is a gif of jumping from one table to another when modifying a column name. I highlighted some points.
1) when modifying a colunm name directly from the column pane ==> get jumped on the first table pane.
2) when using the pencil icon close to the column name ==> the option frame disappears and we get jumped to the first table pane
3) when clicking on the other table pane ==> the option frame is still here
I believe there are other better "naming" for this menu item rather than "performance"..... Very much confusing.
I prefer "Sync settings" instead of "performance".
When I firstly clicked this option, I expected performance/audit log will appear, but it was not.
Also there is another menu for off line mode, but it should be wrapped inside "Sync settings" as we have in legacy editor.
Separate menues for Settings/Manage are just adding confusion. Not intuitive at all.I m not perfectly sure whatsort of option will be available by clicking either of those options. Current legacy UX is more intuitive. It is getting worse, if this is really GA-ed and introduced as supported layout.
Why the basic UX is not consistent between editor and app (new desktop ux)?
New desktop UX is promising and wait it will be GA-ed soon. However, the new editor layout is not actually. Even a tiny thing is giving me confusion and frustration.
Action icon alone not telling all so we should get the full navigation menu by toggling as we see in new desktop UX (which looks great). However, on new editor layout, we have no option to expand/close the menu... Not sure why. I would say this is inconsistency, not sure what the Google Standard will be in terms of recommended UXs.....
Hi @Guillermo ,
Thanks for reporting these! We're tracking these internally so we can look at them once the team is back from being out for the holidays.
For the second issue you report-- you should be able to navigate to these slices by using the "Go to problem" link in the "Errors & Warnings dialog" for now. Hopefully that helps!
Best,
Shahaf
