This tip explains a couple of workarounds for problems that I hope AppSheet can address. So, hereโs hoping this little essay will eventually be made obsolete. In the meantime, however, I think it has some information you should know about if you are interested in linking to external sites from your apps.
First of all, hereโs the basic information on how to put a hyperlink to an external site in your app:
This page has a link to the following sample app, which I will use for this little โnot in the manualโ tip:
If you copy this and then open it up in your phone, the links should look like this:
If I tap on one, I get this:
Notice the blue text and icons at the very top. This means that the page is still contained within the AppSheet platform. In many cases, this may be preferable but problems can occur. Some websites have functions that wonโt work until the user taps on the square icon with the arrow, in the upper righthand part of the screen. In such cases, itโs better to send users directly to the external site. Doing so has the additional advantage of making it possible to move freely between the external site and the app. Hereโs how you do that:
Seems simple enough. Just click on the โLaunch Externalโ switch in the action, right? Not so fast. The platform will let you turn โLauch Externalโ on, but when you try to save it, it reverts to โoff.โ The solution is in the following post by @Heru:
I think this is something that AppSheet should fix. If they could find a way to make a system-generated action editable, this little app-building task would be made much easier. Also, even if you already know about the need to copy system-generated actions (and then do all of the necessary reconfiguring to hide the system-generated one and make sure the new one is included in your slice, etc.), itโs easy to forget. Thatโs what happened to me today. Even more objectionable is not greying out the switch that wonโt work. The current configuration makes it a little time trap for the uninitiated or the forgetful (like me ).
Finally, make your link text short. Hereโs how a longer link looked today:
Not only was the text cut off abruptly, but the action icon also disappeared. Even though the actual video title is longer, I shortened it as follows to make it look OK:
It would be nice if link text could be split into more than one line and a little space left for the icon, but for now I think itโs probably better to abbreviate the text ourselves.
By the way, this issue with inline action icon disappearance may be related to the following:
I take it that this is a difficult problem for AppSheet and thatโs why it hasnโt been addressed yet. I hope, though, it can be resolved before too much longer.
Hereโs an update on this tip:
Regarding the need to copy a system-generated hyperlink action in order to get it to open outside of AppSheet:
Resolved. Iโm not exactly sure when the fix came but all is well now.
Regarding the failure of hyperlinked text to wrap properly
Still unresolved as far as I can see. Hereโs another tip with a workaround for this problem problem:
Make hyperlink text wrap properly
Sorry. I was confused. Itโs not completely resolved. But, it is indeed possible to make a system-generated hyperlink open outside of the AppSheet app. For details see the following:
Hola me podrรญas ayudar por favor, necesito abrir una pรกgina web estando dentro de appsheet?
Create an action using the type "External: go to a website".
Pero lo que necesito es abrir el sitio web dentro de appsheet?
Internamente dentro de appsheet?
Disable the action's "Launch External" property.
Ya estรก desabilitada y aรบn asรญ me sigue mandando a un sitio externo?
Sigue siendo un sitio externo--ya sea que se abra o bien dentro o bien fuera del app.
Recomiendo que inicies un hilo nuevo para detallar tu meta or consulta.
Quiero abrir esto dentro de mi app: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=zfN3yaj8CAM
@dbaum @Kirk_Masden quiero abrir este recorrido virtual dentro de mi aplicaciรณn, ayuda por favor
@dbaum @Kirk_Masden quiero abrir este recorrido virtual dentro de mi aplicaciรณn, ayuda por favor
You have a link to your virtual tour but I don't think you can open it in your app. You just need to link to in.
@Kirk_Masden wrote:You have a link to your virtual tour but I don't think you can open it in your app. You just need to link to in.
Ok, gracias. Lo puse en un HTML: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19gGKKPr33s-3cg8H7tZmugJd6TNgDTTH/view?usp=drivesdk
Pensรฉ que tal vez se podrรญa visualizar de esta manera en mi app