Is there a chronological record of (major) platform changes

[Kirk_Masden]

My app is more-or-less finished. I expect to continue to tweak it but I am no longer actively editing. However, as the capabilities of the AppSheet platform expand, I’d like to consider incorporating new features.

My problem is that I’m having trouble figuring out what’s new. The “What’s New” section of this forum is more like an “Occasional Posts from AppSheet” section and is by no means comprehensive.

For the most part, it seems that users are just expected to discover changes in display styles (and perhaps some other changes in the platform) as they come on board. I recently inquired about a change in style and got a very nice reply from @praveen:

Table view minor update is causing issues

100% agree on the feedback period. @Mike_Moss and @morgan FYI — I believe that was supposed to happen for the current set of changes. I know we discussed it internally and there was at least one posting about some changes. Maybe not this one — we’ll check and make sure we do more of this. Overall, we are trying to make the app UX more modern and consistent with current expectations for app styling. We want to make sure apps built on AppSheet look comparable to hand-built apps built by dev teams…

But as far as I can tell there’s no systematic way in which changes are communicated to creators.

The AppSheet platform is our toolbox for app creation. When a tool function is changed (as with recent display changes) or a new tool is added, we need to know. I think that major additions, particularly additions that AppSheet wants feedback on, get announced. Even with such changes, however, I don’t think a neatly organized chronological list is available.

I’m hoping I’m wrong and that the kind of information I’m hoping for is available but I’ve just missed it. Please let me know.

I’m looking forward to hearing from any of you who share my interest in this topic.

[Kirk_Masden]

Here’s an example of the kind of information I’m interested in:

Feature Friday | September Recap

This is good but it would be nice but currently this kind of information is mixed in with other blog posts. I’m hoping for a single URL I can go to in order to find all of the changes that have occurred since I last checked.

Oh! I found it:

https://community.appsheet.com/c/feature-release-notes/25

But, in my defense, it’s hard to find. As far as I can see, none of the categories at the top of the page link to it:

[Kirk_Masden]

It seems to me that “What’s New” (at the top of the community screen) should be made into a dropdown menu with links to both “Announcements” and “Feature Release Notes”. Ironically, “What’s New” only links to one category of posts, whereas the other headings have drop-down menus that link to more than one.

If “Feature Release Notes” had been in “What’s New,” I wouldn’t have needed to write this excessively long post.

[GreenFlux (GreenFluxLLC)]

@Kirk_Masden

The “What’s New” section of this forum is more like an “Occasional Posts from AppSheet” section and is by no means comprehensive.

There’s also the new Feature Release Notes category, but it also seems to be occasional and incomplete. I’d prefer a detailed, chronological change log- in a single page (not multiple threads), but I think AppSheet’s approach on this is different because it’s a no-code platform.

I’m also not a fan of the support document format. Again, I think this comes down to AppSheet targeting non-developers, so those of us that are used to traditional documentation and change logs feel like the platform is missing something.

But this is a no-code platform with lots of users who have no coding experience, so I guess they don’t feel there is enough of a demand for this level of detail to be available to the community. I don’t agree with that, but I do think this is why there isn’t more attention given to those resources.

[Kirk_Masden]

I’m glad you and I have similar views about this. Personally, I don’t think that the no code vs. code issue should impact on whether or not platform changes are noted in an easy to follow format. Perhaps the no code orientation might lead to a more discursive style – as opposed to a straight list – but, nonetheless, I think we need to be able to find out what has changed since a given date. Having said that, I would be happy to see a long, searchable text file if that were to be made available.

For now, I’ll be satisfied with making “Feature Release Notes” easier to find.

[Kirk_Masden]

@Kirk_Masden

But as far as I can tell there’s no systematic way in which changes are communicated to creators.

Thanks for making AppSheet a company that listens, @praveen ! This kind of response is one of many great aspects of AppSheet!

Deployment Change Log

We heard you. Finally. One of your long-standing asks has been to provide a change log as we make daily deployments. We started doing this today, our first deployment of 2021. The format may change over time, but for now, each deployment will be matched with a post in the Feature Release Notes section of this forum. Here’s today’s change log … Release notes: January 5, 2021

I also see that “Feature Release Notes” can now be accessed from “What’s new,” just as I had requested in this thread.

I think that I’m only one of many people who had asked for these kinds of improvements but, nonetheless, I feel heard and am grateful.

[praveen (Praveen Seshadri (AppSheet))]

Thank you for your patience @Kirk_Masden