Add Shapes and Text to Your Pictures - Sign up for...

Arthur_Rallu · 10-02-2024 09:59 AM

[Edited on Oct 8th - pushing back launch date to week of Oct 14th]

Hey everyone,

We’re excited to announce we are now previewing new drawing capabilities on Android devices.

Current drawing capabilities are limited and users have reported frustration because they are tedious to use and because image annotations and highlights end up lacking clarity. As a result, the team is adding the following capabilities:

Adding geometrical shapes, e.g. rectangles, ellipsis, arrows
Adding text
Moving geometrical shapes and text
Zooming in/out before and after adding drawings
Remembering the last color a user selected

We will be rolling this out on ~~October 9th~~ the week of October 14th as part of a Private Preview.

In order to experiment with this yourself, you should:

Fill in this Form with your AppSheet account ID by ~~October 8th~~ October 14th. You can get it at https://www.appsheet.com/account/account/Sources . Note that it is NOT the ID of a specific app.
For each app you want to test this with, go enable the Preview Program under Settings > Views > General > Preview new features

The new drawing capabilities will then be available to app users on an Android device when they add a picture for an IMAGE column or a DRAWING column.

Note that Android app users must have the latest version of the AppSheet app (version 16.8) and that this feature can’t be tested in the Editor.

We want to hear your feedback before we proceed further and make it more widely available. You can provide that feedback via the same app you used for sign-up.

As this feature is in preview, it should not be used for production use cases.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reply to this thread 🙂

Steve

Neat!

jyothis_m

Another great feature addition

Koichi_Tsuji

@Arthur_Rallu

Is there any (near) future plan to introduce the same to iOS devices?

@takuya_miyai

baba_sawane

Very appreciated!

Edit : It'll be cool to be supported on desktop & iphone version too. But hey, this is already great news !

Example on how I will immediately use it on desktop: Technicians take photos on-site to support their assessments. Sometimes they forget to include certain photos in their reports, or they add incorrect photos because the specific element is not clearly identified. Additionally, there are cases where photos are taken, but the report is completed later, only via desktop by the team lead, as some technicians are external to the company.

When reviewing or creating the report, the team lead can add or edit the photos from their desktop.

Gil

@baba_sawane Thank you for sharing your use case. Please note that one limitation we currently have is that users can only edit images immediately after adding them to a form. This means that the team lead wouldn’t be able to edit the photos taken by the technicians even if they were using an Android device.

This limitation is a result of the early stage we’re sharing this with you, and will be resolved before this feature will become generally available.

baba_sawane

Thanks for the insight Gil !

jyothis_m

@Arthur_Rallu Please add the option to crop the picture also along with this if its already not included.

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Thank you @Arthur_Rallu and development team very much for this very useful feature addition.

Presume this feature will enable exciting possibilities to app creators for text overlay options in image columns and that the images can be used in detail view as header image or in deck, card gallery views main images.

Also as @Koichi_Tsuji already mentioned, it will be good to know when the iOS option is planned. I am sure a significant percentage of AppSheet users use iOS devices.

Will be eager to test and provide feedback.

T_I_Phong

Useful!

scott192

Please publish an Appsheet development roadmap...please!

takuya_miyai

Thanks @Arthur_Rallu !

As many of you know, the account ID required for the form can be found below.

Fabian_Weller

Thank you so much @Arthur_Rallu this will be very helpful!!!

Please also add it for iOS and Desktop.

And please allow us to crop and rotate images.
The only way by now is using an API like @Koichi_Tsuji showed us: https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Tips-Tricks/IMAGE-EDITING-Rotate-Crop-Resize-Mirror-Etc-Usin...

Gil

Thank you all for signing up and sharing your thoughts. As Arthur mentioned we are excited to hear your feedback once you’ve tried this next week.

@Koichi_Tsuji @baba_sawane @Suvrutt_Gurjar @Fabian_Weller We’re using Android to pilot this feature. We want to see how this is received on Android before we plan it for iOS and desktop. We don’t have a timeline, but we certainly have the other platforms in mind.

@jyothis_m @Fabian_Weller We focused on adding geometric shapes and text first based on feature requests we got from the community. Cropping and rotating are natural additions and we plan to add them in the future.

hien_nguyen

Hi @Arthur_Rallu
This feature is great but it better than I wish Appsheet will update 2 features essential for input picture as below:
1. Allow uploading multiple pictures at the same time.
2. Allow to get and show timestamps and Address or GPS LatLong of the picture when taking a picture with AppSheet by mobile.
Thanks

tom136

Please allow selecting the default camera (front-facing or back-facing) for a field. When a form has a specific use case, users are confused at having to swap the camera / annoyed about having to swap it every single time.

Arthur_Rallu

Quick update: we had to push the launch date to next week. I updated the original post.

Thank you.

admin_hocappshe

greats

Gil

We've just released the new drawing capabilities to app creators who signed up until Monday.

As a reminder, to see the new experience you'll need to make sure that:
1. Your app has the Preview new features toggle enabled (see Arthur's post for screenshot).
2. You are using an Android device running version 16.8 (or higher) of the AppSheet app.

Once you have tried it, please let us know what you think of this new feature by filling up this form.

Suvrutt_Gurjar

@Arthur_Rallu and @Gil and Team,

Thank you very much for sharing this useful feature. A few comments after the first hand try. Please excuse if I have misunderstood some setting and if it already exists.

1. The text can be added and its font can be increased / decreased and a few preselected colors can be added. This is all useful. However I could not see how to position the text on teh image meaning x axis y axis control to place the text anywhere on the image.

2. Shape -circular and rectangular can be added. Please allow an easy way of placing the text if needed within the shapes.

3. it will be great if some selection to access the text from some other text column(s) of the record is available. So if it is product photo and it is a product record, the product name and price column can be referenced in the image.

Anyway this is a great start and overall the feature looks very promising. Very good start. Congrats.

Gil

Hi @Suvrutt_Gurjar,
Thank you for the quick feedback!
Once you've added text, you should be able to drag it to where you want it to be located. Same goes for the other shapes (although not the free form drawings). Just make sure no tool is selected when trying to drag.

Suvrutt_Gurjar

Got it. Thank you very much @Gil

hien_nguyen

Hi @Gil ,

We need a feature to input multiple pictures in a column simultaneously more than this feature.

Besides that consider a feature for the desktop that the user only needs to take copy (Ctrl+C) or take snap screenshots or hold and paste a picture from the Device or website to AppSheet or click holding and move to AppSheet to upload a picture. It is handy for end users.

Larksuite had updated these features very well, why did Appsheet update too slowly?

Thanks & best regards,

Hien Nguyen

Aurelien

Hi @Gil

Thanks for releasing this feature!

I just gave it a try, and my app suddenly closed when closing the drawing part (clicking on "done"). It happended twice, I recorded the second one; I can send the video recording by DM if you want it.

I checked the AppSheet version: 16.8.1.

EDIT 1: I just noticed there was an earlier version of AppSheet available on the play store, just downloaded it: no bug anymore (version 16.8.2 now)

EDIT 2: I would suggest one improvement: being able to keep editing the picture with the same tool after clicking on done. On my phone, after playing with circles, squares and texts and saving it, I was left with the initial "simple" drawing tools.

Gil

Hi @Aurelien,

Versions 16.8 and 16.8.1 had an issue that might cause the app to crash in some cases. It should be resolved in 16.8.2 as you've already figured out.

Your edit 2 suggestion sounds like you are using a drawing column type. We are still trying to find the optimal way to have the new drawing experience in drawing column types (in the long term, you shouldn't see both the old interface and the new one as it is now).
If you try using an image column type instead, you would be able to keep editing the image even after pressing done.

Aurelien

Hi @Gil

Thanks for the explanation. Yes indeed, I was using Drawing as it made sense to me 🙂

It works like a charm with type.

However, I come back to my suggestion: I have the possibility to "retake" or "clear", but not "keep editing". I really think it could be nice to keep editing, even if it's from the previous take+effects rather than from scratch 🙂

Gil

Hi @Aurelien,

That's a good point.
Right now you should be able to keep editing before you save the form.
The option to edit previously saved images would be added soon.

kvngo94

OMG I'm doing inspection and drawing circle a lot, this would help alot!

jyothis_m

@Arthur_Rallu @Gil while adding Existing Photo, the image preview does not show up anymore in the Form. Only the three buttons - RETAKE , EDIT , CLEAR.

if i press EDIT, the App crashes every time.

Gil

Hi @jyothis_m,

I'm sorry to hear your experiencing crashes.

Could you please DM me with some more info to help me get to the bottom of this? In particular, I would like to know:

What is your app's name?
Which version of the Android native app are you using?
Does the same thing happens when you're taking a picture from the camera?
Would it be possible for you to send me a screen recording of the crash?

Thanks

jyothis_m

Hi @Gil

when I check the same today, the issue is resolved. The app is not crashing anymore and the thumbnails of existing photo is correctly showing. I do not know what change happened between yesterday and today. May be the app might have auto updated, not sure.

Anyway, the issue is resolved 😊 Thank you and sorry 😀

The app version is presently 16.8.2

EDIT 23/10/2024 10:45 IST

The issue appeared again. I have made a screen recording. Shall upload it as reply to this.

jyothis_m

App crashing while adding photo from existing and clicking edit. Photo also not getting uploaded. Just showing the three buttons without any thumbnail

Gil

We continued this thread over DMs.
For anyone else who might be running into the same issue, we believe version 16.9 of the Android app resolves this. Please let me know if you're still seeing this after updating to v16.9.

Saddam

@Arthur_Rallu

Thank you so much for this. this is absolutely fantastic. Please make it available for cross platform

Saddam

@Arthur_Rallu

Please grant access for me. still i could not manage to see it

Gil

Hi @Saddam,

Is your account ID ending in 101? If so, I added it yesterday, and you should have access now.

Please make sure that:

You're using an app owned by that account
You have enabled the preview toggle for that app (see screenshot in Arthur's post)
You are running the app on an Android device with the latest version of AppSheet from the playstore (v16.8 or higher)

Saddam

@Gil

Yes Gill,

everything that you mentioned it's correct but still not working!!!

Gil

Hi @Saddam,

Are you editing an existing image? Right now, you can only edit images right after taking them. If you hit the "retake" button and take a new picture, you should be able to edit it.

The ability to edit existing images will be added soon.

baba_sawane

This would be a great addition 😀

kvngo94

Hi Gil, in the future, will IOS have this feature too ?

Add Shapes and Text to Your Pictures - Sign up for the Preview!