Mention and topics with @ and #

HCF
Participant V

Any plans on having the @ and # operators implemented into the AppSheet so that we can refer to rows in other tables via those operators?

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Steve
Participant V

Why?

Itโ€™s more modern and easier for the users to interact that way I believe.
Also, it may give more flexibility in building relationships.
Just like when I use @Steve and #requests

Iโ€™m having trouble imagining how this would be used. Could you describe what you envision? Would it be something youโ€™d use in expressions in the app configuration? Or something users of the app would use?

I am looking for something the users could use.
For instance, while typing a note you may want to refer to a customer and then itโ€™s convenient to just type @ and the customer name.

Hello Hans, letโ€™s say you could refer a table like โ€œUsersโ€, so you would type @Users, but then you would have to tell appsheet what column you would like to refer to, so that could be @Users[Name], but then you have to tell appsheet which row(s) are you interested in, at that point you would have something straight up like select() or lookup() i believe.

Yes @Rafael_ANEIC-PY , you probably need a Select() or Lookup() to shows the records to select from.
You already have the Find function in the top of the screen. Maybe, thatโ€™s reusable somehow for this purpose.

Aaaah i think i got it, you want users to be able to see lists or rows by mentioning the tables with the @ or # operators while typing on text or longtext fields? sort of like when you mention someone on a facebook comment i believe?

MultiTech
Participant V

So something like this?

But you would still have to build something like Raf mentioned:

in(INDEX(Current_User[User_Mention_Tag], 1), [Extracted_Mentions])

The full setup I would use for this would be as follows:

  • Inside the table where people can type their text and include their mentions
    • I would include an ExtractMentions() column to pull out the mentions used in that record and store it as a static value (since it doesnโ€™t change unless the text changes).
  • I would create a slice of that table, utilizing the formula I shared above, to hold all the records that have a mention for the current user.
  • I would then show that slices data wherever
    • create a view for the current user to see
    • List them inside the user record
    • etc.

You would have to detect the typing of @ and #, so that you can show a list to select a name like @MultiTech_Visions . Then obviously, there must be some logic behind to bind the records together in a relation.

Steve
Participant V

This is not a feature request for AppSheet itself, but for apps. AppSheet already provides support for mentions and hash tags in the form of EXTRACTMENTIONS() and EXTRACTHASHTAGS().

See also:

Can you elaborate what you mean by this?

OK, you can extract, but that is not my point.
I want to insert the reference like this @Steve

MultiTech
Participant V

Back where it all beganโ€ฆ

Iโ€™ve wanted the same thingโ€ฆ itโ€™s basically โ€œon the flyโ€ enumlist basetype ref built into text/long text fieldsโ€ฆ
So, the way I think AppSheet could help implement it would be a configuration of text column definitionsโ€ฆ where you could designate one or many special characters fields and their associated referenced table.

So, on a long text column, the app developer could designate โ€œ@โ€ references the USER table, further maybe even a dynamic valid list expression spot beneath that. Then you could also designate โ€œ#โ€ references the ENUM table with a list expression.

Then the user of the app could start typing โ€œI wish we could go to the store @usertablelabel and we need to get #enumtablelabelโ€

I would imagine that in the backend data we would be storing #key and @key (Which then we could extract and utilize, or create Virtual Ref_Row columns for.) The front end of Appsheet would be emphasizing and bringing in the label for these for user viewing. (The same way they do in the REF dropdowns.)

I would think that in order for appsheet to pull this off, they would first need text field formattingโ€ฆ

Yes, thatโ€™s exactly what I think @Grant_Stead
All the modern platforms are using this LinkedIn, FB, Twitter and many more.

For now I just carry separate enumlist fields after the text field, just like how Facebook old school tagging friends images used to be a separate exercise.

MultiTech
Participant V

This plays into similar requests from ages ago:

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