COMMUNITY CHALLENGE: Top Monthly Tutorial Video

[GreenFlux (GreenFluxLLC)]

Hello AppSheet Dev’s!

---

AppSheet is AWESOME, and a big reason for that is this community.
This forum is full of great info, and the members are constantly contributing new, valuable content.

There isn't a lot of video content though, so to encourage more, I thought we could start a monthly challenge to post new video content, and an end-of-month poll to let the community vote on the best post.

I’ve posted a few videos, and I know @tsuji_koichi, @MultiTech_Visions, @Grant_Stead, @Fabian, and several others have taken the extra time to create videos, just to help other users learn AppSheet.

---

Since there isn’t a lot of video content, everything is fair game.
It doesn’t have to be an advanced tip or new hack. Just pick an easy topic and create a video that shows how to build something.

Some people learn better from videos. And what you think is basic could be a valuable tutorial to someone else. One year from now, your post may be in the top video tutorials of 2021.

This is especially true if you can make tutorials in other languages!

Please consider joining this monthly challenge and submitting content in any language.

---

I think the #resources category is the best place for these posts, but any post within the month will be considered. I’ll post a new poll on the first of every month and share the results the following week.

Thank you to all who contribute to the forums and volunteer your time to help others learn AppSheet!

[GreenFlux (GreenFluxLLC)]

I’m nominating @MultiTech_Visions for the top video post for January:

Quick Update System - How to update records in your app with a push of a button

“How can I update a parent record when a child record is changed?” “How can I mark all the line items in an invoice as paid when I mark the invoice as paid?” “If I have App Formulas inside a physical column, how can I get those to update like a virtual column?” “How can I recalculate formulas with a push of a button?” All of these situations can be solved by implementing a Quick Update System inside your app. What is the Quick Update System? A way to update app formulas and recalculate v…

---

Everyone is welcome to post below and nominate as many videos as you like for the month.

I’ll compile the submissions and post poll at the end of the month, so we can all vote on the top video each month!

SUBMISSION RULES

• Forum members may submit their own videos, or nominate another member’s video.
• Videos should be original, AppSheet related content, created by a forum member.
• Submissions should link to a separate post, so create a new Tips & Tricks post first and then link it.
• Linked posts/videos should be recent, but they don’t have to be the same month. So you can submit something form last month that just missed the voting deadline.

My goal is to create at least one new video per month, and keep this challenge going to encourage others to create more video content.

Got an idea for a tutorial video? Post it below for other members to consider.

[Grant_Stead]

I think it’s fitting that Matt from @MultiTech_Visions gets the first one. He’s been delivering grade A video content for years!

[Steve (Steve Coile)]

@MultiTech_Visions’ videos are how I started learning AppSheet!

[Lynn]

@MultiTech_Visions
Matt’s videos got me started on Appsheet as well. They are great.

[MultiTech_Visions]

Thank you all so much, you are all too kind.

[lamontfr (Francois Lamontagne sysagi.com)]

Back in early 2018, @MultiTech_Visions videos were the key resource that made me understand how to build Apps with AppSheet. Thanks Matt !

[GreenFlux (GreenFluxLLC)]

Alright, here’s my submission for January! Keep em’ coming- there’s still a week left to nominate your own or someone else’s AppSheet tutorial video.

Text Validation using List Subtraction and an EnumList of Allowed Values

Text validation in AppSheet can be a little challenging. [image] There’s no RegEx, and you have to nest 26 SUBSTITUTE()'s just to validate for letters only. And you can nest more SUBSTITUTE()'s for numbers and special characters, but not apostrophes. This sample app uses a different approach; An EnumList table that stores the list of allowable characters, to be reused for validating multiple columns throughout the app-- or for generating lists for buttons and dropdowns. Text Valida…

[Kirk_Masden]

I agree that @MultiTech_Visions deserves the first prize.

I’m not ready to submit anything at the moment but I might like to throw my hat in the ring later. To do so, however, I’d love to know how @MultiTech_Visions 's videos are hosted and the procedure for posting them.

The old community made sharing videos as easy as sharing still images. In this community, however, you can’t just drag and drop an mp4 into a post (at least, not the last time I checked). So, I’d love to see a video post about how to share video posts!!

[GreenFlux (GreenFluxLLC)]

Throwing in another submission for January:

SAMPLE APP (Update): Group any table view by different columns without leaving the view

Update to US States Sample App Added in line actions to change the current view’s grouping, without leaving the view. [2021-01-24 09.09.08] [Grouping a Single Table View by Multiple Columns with Actions] Thanks to @tsuji_koichi for the inspiration.

[GreenFlux (GreenFluxLLC)]

@Kirk_Masden

The old community made sharing videos as easy as sharing still images. In this community, however, you can’t just drag and drop an mp4 into a post (at least, not the last time I checked). So, I’d love to see a video post about how to share video posts!!

I had to ask @MultiTech_Visions the same thing! I guess you used to be able to embed videos directly from GDrive, but now you have to use Youtube or some other service, which means an extra step of uploading it somewhere else first.

[Kirk_Masden]

Thanks! That’s what I thought. I like the look of the service that @MultiTech_Visions is using. I’m not sure about using YouTube when I don’t want to have a “channel” but just want to embed videos elsewhere. Perhaps I can do that on YouTube – I need to look into it. I just tried to use the following embedding code for Google drive but it didn’t work for some reason:

<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uZisWUHPZPbYUlFDjvy__rVf1UAUZK6V/preview" width="640" height="480"></iframe>

[Kirk_Masden]

Here’s another embedding attempt:

Code:

<video controls="" height="360" poster="https://www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~masden/2018/ICS/0417/How_to_Use_Kankaku.png" width="640">

For some reason, the mp4 URL in the source component of the above video tag is not being displayed. Sorry. The platform just won’t let me show all of the tag to you in one piece.

I’m disappointed, however, to find that it’s very slow to start playing. I don’t have that problem on my Google Blogger page:

How I Use AppSheet in My Classes

Hmmm. iframe and video tags are not working well. This forum strikes me as being rather video unfriendly. Of course, I could use YouTube but I wish I didn’t HAVE to use youtube.

P.S. The video tag didn’t seem to work well at first but now it’s more-or-less OK in terms of playing speed, at least for me. I have noticed, however, that it’s not very stable. I’ve already had to restart the video a couple of times.

[Kirk_Masden]

Now I see that @MultiTech_Visions is using the following service:

Screen Recording Software for Mac & PC | CloudApp

[GreenFlux (GreenFluxLLC)]

@Kirk_Masden

This forum strikes me as being rather video unfriendly. Of course, I could use YouTube but I wish I didn’t HAVE to use youtube.

I was thinking the same thing. I really don’t want to have to mess with managing a YouTube channel. I just want to share videos here, for this community. I have no need for the ads, comments, or all the other junk.

[Kirk_Masden]

This video talks about making videos unlisted and then sharing them, either from YouTube or Vimeo:

How to Privately Embed YouTube & Vimeo Videos on Your Website

I’m not sure but if I can upload videos that don’t appear in a “channel” of mine, that might be good enough for me. It really would be nice, though, if this forum could make it possible to upload video directly.

[MultiTech_Visions]

@Kirk_Masden

Now I see that @MultiTech_Visions is using the following service:

Indeed!

(And it’s free!!!)

It only gets better when you pay for it; time limits are increased, more options, etc.

CloudApp has an app you can download for your PC that makes things SOOO easy.

Literally just Alt+Shift+6 and…

---

But if it’s an actual video that I’ve put some editing time into, then I’ll host that on YouTube.

[GreenFlux (GreenFluxLLC)]

Here’s a great video from @MultiTech_Visions on looping with actions:

Looping with Actions (Sample App BUILD Video)

There have been many posts about this topic, I thought I would throw one out there showing the creation of a sample app… from start to finish. This way you can follow along if you want, and hopefully end up at the same place I did at the end of the video. (^_^) Here is a link to the app produced in this video (if you want to skip to the end) https://www.appsheet.com/samples/How-to-loop-through-a-list-and-create-child-records-for-each-item-in-that-list?appGuidString=87db6a15-2904-41c6-b6a9-dbf9…

[GreenFlux (GreenFluxLLC)]

Hey Everyone,

As @Kirk_Masden and @MultiTech_Visions have pointed out, posting videos in the forums is not directly supported.

The videos have to be uploaded to some external service first (Youtube, Vimeo, etc), and then linked or embedded in the forums. And sadly, Google Drive won’t work for embedding (but you can post the link, if it’s public).

---

This forum limitation creates a lot of friction in the process of posting embedded videos, and is a hurdle for others who might want to join this challenge. I considered expanding the challenge to include text posts, but the forums already rank those automatically by category and timeframe.

So I’ve decided to put this challenge on hold to focus on building our freelancer community on Slack.

I plan to continue posting video content occasionally, but I’ve realized the process is too time-consuming for video content to be produced often enough to support a monthly ranking. There are other, more time-effective ways to contribute to this community, and I want to help it grow as much as I can.