Configurable Filter Form As A Built In Option

[Markus_Malessa]

This post is more of a wish list for Appsheet, something I am sure other app creators may have had to deal with themselves. As such I am kind of hoping that a lot of you would tune in and share your own experiences with this as well as provide your +1s if this is something you would like as well.

It seems that Appsheet is lacking functionality to easily integrate some sort of filter form where a creator could easily built a form that allows filtering on multiple columns already present in your table configuration as well as possibly even on virtual columns. I would imagine something similar to a spreadsheet functionality where you can just introduce a filter and clicking on the filter dropdown in the header row then allows you to configure that filter and then set the value(s) you want to filter on.

Within Appsheet you should be able to designate a filter form and introduce which columns you would like to allow filters on by using the ‘column order’ already present in standard forms. The form would show a column header, then a dropdown to allow for ‘=, <, >, in, not in, contains, starts with, etc’ which could be limited depending on the type of column the filter will be applied to and then an input field to either enter your value or possibly another dropdown to choose from values that if the column is an enum or enumlist. The functionality should be that Appsheet would then automatically attach a FILTER() expression to each filter column that if the input is not blank to apply that filter.

On a side note I realize that this type of functionality can be built by the creator by introducing a data table that would act as a filter table. I have actually implemented something like this myself. However there are certain limitations with this approach:

1. It takes quiet a bit of effort to actually get this accomplished which does not jive well in my opinion with Appsheet’s no-code picture.
2. It requires the addition of extra tables which is cumbersome because there are now more tables to manage, which I would also presume increases the app definition size.
3. When filling in a filter field with a quick edit column in my specific case it actually takes a bit of time to sync and apply the filter and I only have 4 fields with filters.

I imagine others have gone through this and have their own input.

[TyAlevizos]

For the most part I would concur. For the sake and spirit of design debate, my response… focusing on this statement: “On a side note I realize that this type of functionality can be built by the creator by introducing a data table that would act as a filter table.”

…is one of predictability, or rather, the lack of predictability. Put in simple terms, it’s likely that a platform like Appsheet will never be able to predict all of the possible permutations around this concept. Or, if we came up with a set of logic, it would please one portion of the audience and displease a second portion of the audience. Inherent conflicts of design might arise.

What’s better, imho, is to provide a design framework that lets all of the audience arrive at the filter concept that is unique to them. Instead of fighting each “battle” one by one, we win the design “war” across the board.

Having said all of this, and to your point, it’s “just software” and anything is possible as a result. I would tag this post as a feature request so that it can be voted upon.

Lastly, although it sounds like you built a solution, here’s a public app sample that demonstrates per-user filtering. Note that you will need to copy and customize the app and add a record for yourself to the user/filter table.

Cheers.