Hide/show complete columns in table view (not column values, not action but filter)

[stuggijo]

Dear AppSheet team,

would be great to have the option of hiding/showing chosen column through a filter button (not through conditional hide of a specific column value, not throgh an action (like the link to filtered view)).
The solution through “go to filtered view” costs much time and does not allow to go back without coming bck to the previous view.
The solution of “show if” of a single value of the column filteres only the specific value, but does not hide the whole column. So in the table view the column itself is shown, but without values.

Filter out specific columns (like rows) would be great! Especially to be able to create specific filtered views of a table.

Thank you much!

[MultiTech]

help.appsheet.com

Show_If Column Constraint

Conditionally show or hide a column value.

[stuggijo]

Thank you MultiTech.

But isn’t it, as I mentioned just for hiding out the values within a column. The column itself (and the space it takes) within the table view is still there, in your solution, but its just empty.
(In your description its about “hiding out the values of a column”. Thats not what I mean. I would like to have a dynamic view that hides the whole column, not just the values. Because sometimes I do not need a column with all empty values. It just takes a lot of space…)
Or not?

[WillowMobileSys]

stuggijo_h:

I would like to have a dynamic view that hides the whole column

By the statement above, I assume you mean if none of the rows in the view have a value then the complete column is hidden. But as soon as one of those rows gets a value, then the column “magically” appears - even though only the one row has a value?

Just to be sure it’s clear, the Show_If column constraint operates at the column level. So if it were set to FALSE, the column will not appear in the Table view - even if it were explicitly listed as a column in the view.

By the way, you can insert expressions into the Show_If to control the showing/hiding of the column. For example, you could insert an expression that checks if all values in a column are empty and if so hide the column!

[stuggijo]

Hey Willow,
thank you for your reply. Actually not quite so.
I would like to hide columns f.e. through a “user preferenced filter button” (the kind of filter that you have if you filter out values, but in this case I would like to filter out some columns “view 1”, “view 2” etc.).

F.e. if I have a table with a lot of columns and I want to give the user the choice which table he wants to see. There may be a bunch of this tables (that have just specific columns).

Currently it is f.e. possible to solve it through a “linktofiltered view” or “linktoview”, where I link to a view, where some columns are filtered out.
But then there are lot of paths created, just to get to another view of the same base. And then if you “go back” with the left arrow, you get to the previous view, but not the the main one. As well the solutions gets slow.

I have also tried to solve it through with link to some user settings cell where the columns are defined, but then the user needs to update the whole table to make the new setting appear. So it is very very slow…

I guess also my problem could be solved, if there would be the “appsettings” function, so that some changes that don’t need to be uploaded could happen on the phone, so that adjustments of views, filters and choices would not have the need the app to be uploaded…

As mentioned here, there are a lot of data sending to the servers and back, that are not necessairy. Such changings could stay on the device and would directly take influence on the app, not just after the resync of the data…

Provide an APPSETTINGS[] list similar to USERSETTINGS[] Feature Requests

@Marc_Dillon, thanks for the share! Seems like a really great workflow, however, I’m having a lot of issues with Slice Row Filtering right now. See the following thread; maybe you have some input:

[Steve]

It is not possible to dynamically or programatically show or hide columns in a table view.

[WillowMobileSys]

Ah yes! I remember now. Even if I implemented an expression to hide it, the column will still show but the values would be hidden resulting in a completely blank column.

[Steve]

Right. Show_If shows or hides the column’s value in a row, not the column itself.

[stuggijo]

Steve:

possible to dynamically or programatically show

yes. that was what I was talking about

[MattJP]

I appreciate that ‘show if’ works at the row level. If this is a request to have it or something else work at the column then please apply my +1 vote. Here are some simplistic thoughts.

Hiding a column is useful if the reason for hiding fields in a detail view is to declutter and improve situational awareness. I have this as a requirement. In my case it is expressed as a desire to allow users to hide/show fields in the app and it was realised using a simple EnumList in Settings and checking that in a ‘show if’ condition. It is unsatisfactory because it leaves empty columns cluttering up the table view.

Slices can be used but it is more complex than ‘show if’. Caveat: that’s an AppSheet ultra-newb perspective.

If a ‘show if’ condition hides all the values in a column, might it not also simply hide that column? I supposed data paging or something similar might be a factor.

Might a separate ‘column’ option for show if work?

[MickySlife]

I too would like to allow users to hide/show a full column in a table view.  We can hide them in a spreadsheet, why so difficult to add a Hide or Show feature with the app?  This is really needed to declutter the screen when certain columns are not relevant at the time for that individual user. 

[DarenJanes]

Add me to the list of wanting to hide a column in Table View. Given how slick this app is, I don't see why this is not available. Hide a column at the table level via an expression.

[EAHendrix]

I know this is an old thread, but this would be very useful. 

[Geneieiux]

Agreed this feature for Table View is same as Hide Column in a Spreadsheet and there are certain conditions you'd want to hide certain columns on a filter.