December 1, 2021

lizlynch · December 1, 2021

Deployment Time: 5:15 PM PST

Features & enhancements

Item Description

Feature

Add 'Export CSV Started' and 'Export CSV Succeeded' dialog boxes for Export View

When an Export View, a dialog box is now displayed with the following details:

Export CSV Started

Exporting records from view: <viewName>
Locale: en-US
This may take a while.
We will let you know when it completes.

When Export View completes successfully, a dialog box is now displayed with the following details:

Export CSV Succeeded
Success

When Export View does not complete successfully, a dialog box is now displayed with the error message.

Bug fixes

*Item*	*Description*
Bug	The Settings panel at the top of the Bot Automation editor was temporarily broken to look like it was floating instead of wrapping. This issue has been fixed and the Settings panel now wraps.
Bug	Fix for Home screen shortcuts appearing solid black on iOS.

Rollout changes

Item

Description

Bug

When quick edit is enabled in Table views, the scroll position of the table is not preserved and it jumps to the top.

New: Deployed to 100% of free users.
Previous: Deployed to 50% of free users.

Feature

New way to transfer apps

Co-authors can now request the transfer of app owners can choose to approve or deny the request (under Manage > Authors). For more information, see the community announcement.

New: Deployed to 100% of free users and 50% of premium users.
Previous: Deployed to 100% of free users and 25% of premium users.

Preview announcements

The AppSheet Preview program lets app creators try out new app features that are not yet fully supported. Learn how to participate in the AppSheet preview program for app client features.

No new preview features were released today.

What's currently available in the Preview program?

*Item*	*Description*
Feature	Table view Table View now supports freezing the first column while scrolling horizontally. For details, see Freezing the first Column of a Table View - in Preview Program.
Feature	Chart Editor App Creators can now make use of our new chart editor and the new and improved charts it can create. Learn more.
Feature	Detail views Rich text formatting is now available in Detail views. For details, see this announcement in the community.

Koichi_Tsuji · 12-02-2021 01:17 AM

Thank you for introducing this one. @Phil

Among other parts of the app, it is more useful if we could localize the contents of this dialogue as well, thank you again.

@Takuya_Miyai

Robert_Horvath · 12-02-2021 06:47 AM

Hi!

I have a pretty complex database with cross references and high row number.
When I try to export in .csv I got the described dialog box:

After 2 mins I received the following pop up message:

In the log analyzer everything seems OK:

During the transaction the internet connection was uninterrupted.

If I export another (less complex) database in the same app, it works fine.

Please advise what could be the problem!

Thanks,
Robert

WillowMobileSys · 12-02-2021 06:56 AM

Did you happen to check to see if the CSV file was created anyway?

Phil · 12-02-2021 09:01 AM

Hi Robert,

There is a 2 minute limit on how long the CSV Export is allowed to run.
I have updated the documentation to describe this limit.
See topic “Export Fails After About Two Minutes” in this article Troubleshooting CSV Export | AppSheet Help Center

I am in the midst of making some optimizations to CSV Export that may help if the timeout is occurring when doing some of the forms of “Row Filtering” as described in this article Export This View to a CSV File | AppSheet Help Center I hope to begin deploying that change next week. When I do so, it will be in a rollout. If you wish to included in the rollout, please let me know. I am not sure it will help in your case, but it might.

Can you tell my roughly how many rows you are reading from the table being exported and how many of those rows are being written to the CSV file?
Are there a lot of expensive filters conditions being applied to the row to decide which rows to export?
Are there expensive virtual column expressions being used in the table being exported? Expensive virtual column computations are one of the primary reasons that the time limit is exceeded.
Would it be possible to partition the single CSV Export into two or more smaller ones?

I suggest that we add you to all of the CSV Export rollouts that are currently underway once I deploy the change I am currently working on. That will allow us to see if any of the optimizations contained in these change help you.

If not, the next change I am planning to make to CSV Export may help us find the performance problem. Currently, CSV Export is not instrumented to collect good performance measurements. I plan to make a change to improve that shortly.

If you submit a support request and grant permission for me to view your application and data, I may be able to determine why CSV Export is taking too long for you application. When you submit the bug report, ask the support organization to forward the bug directly to me and cite this post.

Robert_Horvath · 12-03-2021 02:09 AM

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the summary! I will give you permission to my app soon. Until that please find my answers below:

Read rows: 3300; written rows: 40;
No, it is pretty basic
Yes, very expensive. The app sync takes 40-60 sec
No.

Please find the schematic diagram of the critical databases:

Please note that if I display the filtered data on a dashboard view with a ‘quick edit column’ filter, it is listed immediately.

Robert

Phil · 12-03-2021 07:25 AM

Thanks Robert,

The number of rows is small. That should not be a problem.
As you said, the problem is likely the virtual columns, but I am speculating.
The best way to understand the problem is for me to debug it once you submit the support request.