Copy Paste Fields

[John_Paul_Armis]

Good Day,

Just wanna ask help if its possible to disable copy paste within the form?
For example: Once customer fill up his/her email address another field will appear to confirm his/her email address. In this field paste value is not allowed or copy/paste value is disable.

[LeventK · Accepted solution]

Nope

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

As @LeventK guided, there is no direct way to do the needful. You may wish to consider the following workaround.

1. Email addresses are case insensitive. So JOHNDOE@ANYMAIL.COM is the same as johndoe@anymail.com if used as an email address to send an email.

2. AppSheet’s FIND() function is case sensitive.

So using the above two rules, you can make the user to enter the email twice.

A) First column called say [Email] with the display name "Email ( in ALL Lower case letters)"

Valid_if expression FIND(LOWER([_THIS]),[_THIS])=1

This valid_if expression compels the user to enter the email in an entirely lower case.

B) Second column called say [ConfirmEmail] with the display name ""Confirm Email( in ALL UPPERCASE Letters)"

Valid if expression : FIND(UPPER([Email]),[_THIS])=1
This valid_if expression compels the user to enter the email in an entirely upper case.

Also the valid_if disallows the user to copy and paste email from [Email] column to [ConfirmEnail] column, because [Email] needs it in lower case and [ConfirmEmail] needs it in upper case.

Also it passes the email confirm email entry only if the[Email] entirely matches the [ConfirmEmail] , albeit with different cases.

e.g. It will pass johndoe@anymail.com in [Email] and JOHNDOE@ANYMAIL.COM in [ConfirmEmail]

[LeventK]

Nice workaround @Suvrutt_Gurjar. But don’t you think that it might confuse the user as well? Actually if there’s a must, I would prefer hiding the email field after it’s filled out. However even this will not prevent the copy and paste, as the field will be hidded after it looses the focus, the user can always copy the text before exiting the field

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

Hi @LeventK,

Thank you. I believe if the error message and column titles for the two columns ( Original and confirmation email) are properly set, the user may be Okay to enter as required.

I agree that workarounds are always a bit inferior for the user experience as well as even for in-app calculations etc. But at times these are necessary depending on the absolute need. Yes, if a workaround is not absolutely necessary, it can be done away with, based on the app creator’s judgment. In this case, I just thought of sharing the available possibility.

On hiding the field etc. yes , you are right that the user still can copy and paste.

[LeventK]

Hello @Suvrutt_Gurjar,

Hope you haven’t got me wrong on this. Actually your workaround is a very neat approach indeed. Being developers, isn’t this humbly our power? To provide solutions to a certain problem up to the very possible extent For sure somethimes these solutions might not be as neat as we desire, but if it’s functioning the way the client/user wants, then who cares? Being an oldie goldie architect, I always have a strong belief in what Louis Sullivan once said: Form, ever follows function

Once again thanks for bringing such a neat workaround solution to the community’s attention

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

Hi @LeventK,

Thank you.

Absolutely I did not get you wrong.

We all respect you as a senior community guide. All community admires marvelous sample apps and solutions you provide. We all always learn from excellent automation tips and solutions you share with authority on varied subjects such as webhooks, APIs, GAS and RDBMS and more.

So , Levent, please always share your inputs, keep guiding us. We always learn out of it