Issue with Form View

[ConnieMaldonado]

Newbie. Can’t get fields to show up in form view. See images 1 & 2. In image 1, I have the fields Building, Floor, and Area which are picked by the user on the screens prior. I am only able to get the Area field to show up in the Form View (image 2), and I can’t find where to edit that. Also, why does the triangle with an exclamation point show up for the Area field? Thank you.

[Bahbus]

The triangle, if I recall correctly, is a broken reference of some kind. I think when I had it, it was related to images.

As far as why they aren’t showing up in the form view. I believe it is because you have formulas in the columns. Therefore AppSheet is assuming these are auto-calculated instead of user input - regardless of the editable switch. I believe what you probably wanted to do was move those formulas to Valid If. Try that and see if it does what you want.

Side note, I don’t know your full data structure but I’m not sure if those are the formulas you want to use anyway.

[ConnieMaldonado]

Thanks! Let me try that.

[Steve]

Bahbus:

The triangle, if I recall correctly, is a broken reference of some kind.

Correct! In @ConnieMaldonado’s case, the Area column is of type Ref but contains an area name.

Bahbus:

As far as why they aren’t showing up in the form view. I believe it is because you have formulas in the columns. Therefore AppSheet is assuming these are auto-calculated instead of user input - regardless of the editable switch.

Correct–to a point. A column with an app formula can never be edited by the user, regardless of the Editable? setting. But, a non-editable column will still display in a form–but only if it contains a value: a non-editable column with no value will not be displayed in a form.

Bahbus:

I believe what you probably wanted to do was move those formulas to Valid If.

On this we disagree. I suspect the expressions are meant for Initial value, not Valid If.

Bahbus:

Side note, I don’t know your full data structure but I’m not sure if those are the formulas you want to use anyway.

I do agree with this.

[ConnieMaldonado]

Thanks Steve. Let me try the initial values and see if it works. I realized yesterday that I did not edit the field and the the source column for the Ref - duh.

Another question - how do I add a field to the form view? I have a form view with an underlying table; however, one of the fields is not showing up. I don’t see where to edit that. Anyway, I’ll keep at it! Thank you.

[Steve]

ConnieMaldonado:

Another question - how do I add a field to the form view? I have a form view with an underlying table; however, one of the fields is not showing up. I don’t see where to edit that. Anyway, I’ll keep at it! Thank you.

Chances are, the column is not editable and is blank:

Steve:

A column with an app formula can never be edited by the user, regardless of the Editable? setting. But, a non-editable column will still display in a form–but only if it contains a value: a non-editable column with no value will not be displayed in a form.

[Bahbus]

And this is why Steve is on the AppSheet team. I should have thought about that part a little more thoroughly because I literally have auto-computed VCs that I specifically had to hide from my forms.

Steve:

On this we disagree. I suspect the expressions are meant for Initial value , not Valid If .

I briefly considered that, but I was unsure what his goal actually was for that column.