In Preview: New UI design for desktop users

Hey everyone,

We’re excited to announce we are now previewing our new visual design for applications that are accessed on desktop browsers. 

Currently, your AppSheet applications tend to follow mobile design patterns even when your users have large screens and these patterns can be confusing to desktop users. The new design lets these desktop users navigate their apps more easily and access information in context, and provides an efficient way to create and update records without losing context. App creators can also present more information by leveraging the larger screens but still keep it organized.

Here are some before and after images that better illustrate the design changes.

Legacy Design - Screenshot #1: Sifting through a collection of records grouped by City and State after selecting a State (Deck View)

Arthur_Rallu_0-1659469291920.png

Legacy Design - Screenshot #2: Looking at a specific record after selecting that record in the screen above (Detail View)

Arthur_Rallu_1-1659469291926.png

Legacy Design - Screenshot #3: Editing an existing record/Creating a new record (Form View)

Arthur_Rallu_2-1659469291979.png

 

New Design - Screenshot #1: Seeing your data in context (Deck View + Detail View)

Arthur_Rallu_3-1659469291995.png

New Design - Screenshot #2: Focusing on a specific record (Detail View)

Arthur_Rallu_4-1659469292027.png

New Design - Screenshot #3: Editing in place an existing record

Arthur_Rallu_5-1659469291998.png

New Design - Screenshot #4: Creating a new record (Form View)

Arthur_Rallu_6-1659469292016.png

 

What’s next? Well, this is still a work in progress. We’ve been gathering feedback from a number of design partners, including some of you in the AppSheet Community, and we know there is more to do before it can properly support all of your applications. At this stage, we feel that it would be good to let you play with the new design and to give you an opportunity to share your feedback - what you like, what doesn't work, what you think could use some improvements. This represents a significant change and your feedback will help us guide our next steps. 

As this feature is in Preview, you may see visual changes in your apps as we work to improve the new desktop design in real-time. We don't recommend using the new desktop design in your production apps.

Thank you 

The AppSheet Team

 

FAQ

How do I get access to this new desktop design?

We are currently slowly ramping this new experience over the next week or so, so you may not see this option in the editor immediately.  

For each application, you can opt-in to use the new desktop design. You can toggle between the new and legacy desktop modes, as desired.

Follow these steps to enable the new design in your app:

  1. Open the app in the app editor
  2. Navigate to the UX > Options pane
  3. Enable the Desktop mode (Preview) option - see screenshot below
  4. Save the app in the Editor

Arthur_Rallu_7-1659469291922.png

 

All users of this application that access the app on a desktop browser will then see the new design after their next sync.

How do I configure the design of my app? I don’t see any new settings in the Editor!

There are minimal changes to the Editor for now. Mostly, the same settings are leveraged to specify the desktop and mobile designs. Let me give you an example.

Your apps have “primary views” and “menu views”. With the new desktop design, all of your views will be accessible from a side menu. That menu will list first the “primary views” and then the “secondary views”. In the future, we will adjust the configuration settings and in particular the language so that it makes sense for both mobile and desktop apps. For example, position values of "left most" and "right most" don't make sense for the new desktop design with its vertical menu structure.

We’ll be giving app creators more controls over some features that are currently set by default.

Is there some documentation or more information on what changed?
See Optimize the user experience using the new desktop design (Preview). We’ll update it over time.

Is there a list of functionalities that are known to not work with the new design?

Yes.
First, here is a
 list [as of July 31st] of (high-level) issues and requests that were reported to us and that still need fixes or assessments. Some of them are independent of the desktop mode, but we're still listing them here since people may want to know about them and so they don't need to report them unless it was reported for different app configurations :

General theme Issues
Form View
  1. Follow-up actions (reopen, next view, click-on-save action) do not get triggered or executed properly; sometimes it is dependent of the app configuration and sometimes it is not
  2. Delete and Done buttons are missing to delete new child row
  3. Some performance issue when there are many Enum value buttons and format rule(s)
Navigation expressions: LINKTOROW(), LINKTOFORM(), etc
  1. When used in emails
  2. When used to go to Dashboard Views
Format rules
  1. They don’t properly show up in a dropdown (for Enum, Ref, etc)
  2. They don't always show up in the group-by section
  3. They don’t show up new headers
Detail View UI

- In some configurations, showing the wrong display names in a Detail tab
- Requests to show the image label in the Detail tab

- Edit-in-place in Dashboard view

- Sync gets the app user out of Editing mode in a Detail View

General UI

- Improvement requests on the subnav bar (e.g. larger text button, better responsiveness w.r.t. title, actions, text)

- Clicking in grey area around onboarding view should not navigate the app in the background

- Filtering on Dashboard

- Tooltip for icon action buttons

Chart Views do not behave like other views

Localization of strings Some strings are missing
CSV import/export
  1. Error message when action was successful
  2. Export data based on what is visible to the user
Other app functionalities

- Missing Share, Feedback buttons

- App Gallery behaving differently

- Support of Amazon Cognito (missing account icon)

- OCR not working on Desktop

Functionalities for app creators “Preview as” is not available for the desktop emulator

Second, here is a list of some issues and feature requests that we know we are not going to tackle, at least for now.

Supporting multiple navigation actions in a grouped action

This is not something that we support. The team very intentionally did not want to support this. App creators should not rely on it and it won’t work in desktop mode.

Multiple requests to improve the Table View UI

We got requests to improve the Table View in general. The requests are valid, but that is out of scope for desktop mode. Changes we would be making would also impact the legacy UI and mobile apps.

LINKTOPARENTVIEW() not supported For desktop users, there are better options to navigate back: the browser’s back button and the breadcrumbs.
Font size changes (via app settings) lead to layout issues Generally, we recommend using the browser’s zoom which does a better job at resizing the app.
Background image  

See also Limitations and known issues

How do I provide feedback?

Please share your feedback in this thread below this message!

79 1,215 70.5K
1,215 REPLIES 1,215

Luke_H
Participant IV

Can't wait to test it. Feel free to push to my account asap 🙂

Well done, can't wait to test!

JPAlpano
Participant V

Thank you! Would love to test it as well!

JOHNN
Participant V

wonderful

Thank you! Would love to test it as well!

Hello!

I've been enjoying the New Desktop view since yesterday.
Thank you.

Now that I've found one, I'll report it.
Have a look at this.

Customer-Management-App.gif

When I type from the sidebar with Add, only the last item is cut off.

In the case of Edit, the same phenomenon occurred in the sidebar pattern.

thank you for reading.

Hey, did you do any more step to view the option?  It's still not in my UX>Options page.

@JPAlpano As per the Release Notes, it's only been rolled out to free users so far. 

These things usually go to the free users first, let them be the guinea pigs, and then get rolled out to paid users.

It hasn't hit my account yet either, but I'm looking forward to trying it out!

Okay.  Thanks.

I'm playing with a free account.

I don't see a preview option for Core or Enterprise yet.

This is not a question of free or paid accounts, I have both accounts and I only received this update in a few apps and they're all not deployed. I guess just a few apps are receveing by now.

Good catch, it seems it's not only on forms. Check if you have a long list of Group By "categories"

Hey @SkrOYC 
I could repro the issue with Forms, but I don't see any issues with "Group By". Do you have a screenshot?

Woops! Seems to be fixed.
I wasn't able to see my last 8-9 group by items on a list of 118 which is always growing

Thanks for sharing this!

I have the same problem with the Form View (in my case, when I select a row: Edit)

Someone may have already discovered it. .
QuickEdit seems to have a lot of room for correction. . .

Customer Management App.png

Thank you! Would love to test it as well!

Ratatosk
Participant V

😲I want NOW!  😀 🤓 🎉

Sirfyaad
Participant V

New Option not showing in my account why.

Capture.PNG

It's not deployed yet to all users. Only free accounts first.

Btw. Do you have night light on extreme mode? 🤣

Hi,

How can I convert show page-headers to cards in detail view?

I have been testing without succsses

Finally, I found it. UX -> Options -> Detail view

ejordana_0-1659607612097.png

 

Hi @ejordana 

Please set a show category is Page_header.

Snag_a40c56.png

Correct. To summarize, currently to see Card Blocks on a Detail View on desktop, you need the following:

  1. Your data schema needs to have SHOW columns that are "Page_Header". 
  2. Each "Page_Header" column creates a new card block that includes all columns below until another card block is created
  3. Each list of Related Items is in its own card block
  4. Under UX > Options >Detail View, the "Include Show columns in Detail View" toggle should be turned on

 

Hi @Arthur_Rallu 

I was going to Feedback this later as well, but even with "Include Show columns in detail views" turned off, the Show item is not hidden in New Desktop.
I believe your comment is probably correct in terms of the original spec. I hope you can try it once.

Hi @Arthur_Rallu 
Thanks for the great features you and your team provide.🤗

I feel that this feature makes previewing in the Desktop View even more necessary.
It may be difficult to apply in the current preview area, but I think it is a necessary feature for App Creator to provide an optimal UX on both mobile and desktop.

Snag_e77cbe.png



Yes, we agree that app creators should be able to more easily see how their changes impact their apps UI on desktop. Otherwise, it is tedious. 

Saludos Arthur, como estas?. Mira una pregunta acerca de la vista Form. A la hora de querer ver una columna ref a otra tabla, no aparece. Podrá ser un error temporal?

adjunto unas imagenes:

Captura de pantalla (4).png

I need this .................................................

SkrOYC
Participant V

Just for the sake of making sure it's mentioned, we need more "Localize" fields, I guess this counts as the future editor changes.

Now that we are on that:
Can we have an "import csv" kind of scenario for t... - Google Cloud Community
Support "LongText"-kind of data on Localize fields - Google Cloud Community

SkrOYC
Participant V

Sorry, just seconds after my post I found the problem.

It seems there is a problem with the scroll controller.
If you scroll using the scroll wheel of a mouse or a touchpad/trackpad it works fine.
If you do it by draging the scrollbar you can't get to the bottom. You have to stop and drag it again to do it. Same the other way around

Skip2MiLu
Participant V

@Arthur_Rallu  
You guys have out done yourselves! 👏 
I found myself saying over and over "that's cool!"....."ooo.....that's very cool!" as I played some of my apps.  This new feature has "energised me" to play more with app development.

I always found "backend" vs "front end / i.e. UI" development prioritisation and interesting debate. The one can not live without the other, but the end of the day UI has to come 1st otherwise the backend does not mater. The backend is there to support the "show" i.e. front end.
You just need to compare major companies current situation vs their start and see which ones became more succesfull. The ones that focused on the backend 1st with frontend being an after thought and those that focused on the front end 1st and ensured the backend support it. 

Let just say I really happy appsheet has started to really invest in the front end. Please carry on "playing" with front end!!!  Please carry on "playing" in general....design your structures to faciliate "playing". You already doing this by making toggles to switch on an off. I would consider even expainding on this. 
See below, something to think about.

Skip2MiLu_0-1659644982786.png

 

I just realised that the "quick edit" enables "text wrap over two lines" on columns indicated as LongText type and remains single line on Text and Name type.

I really wish appsheet would consider implementing the same view on longtext column type in normal view and not just edit view. 

This would really help users not need to scroll left and right so much, which used even more of a nightmare when appsheet did not have freeze 1st column yet. 
This feature become even more of important option in mobile phones where horizontal space in a table is non existent. 

Also appsheet already is setup for the user to decide what they want. 
-Use a LongText column type to wrap text
-Use a Name / Text column type to keep text unwrapped. 

Let me see if I get a comment out of @Arthur_Rallu  on this one. It is worth a try.
I would love your thoughts on this .....Pretty Please! 😇 🤞

ScreenShot 2022.09.04 (19.38.02) -.gif

Hi @Skip2MiLu 
I saw you posted that as a feature request/idea. Thank you.

I can see how that's useful. The team is focusing on getting the new desktop design out of preview, so we won't be able to prioritize it (at least for now).

@Arthur_Rallu and rest of appsheet community. 

I thought I would bring up this conversation again with regards to how Long Text is is implemented / present in the UI. 

I would like Appsheet to consider implementing the same two row text wrap on Long Text column types currently implemented in quick edit table. 
Currently the normal view only shows one row of text. 
I also found find that there is scroll bar on some of the long text cell but not others. So I wondering if Appsheet is already experimenting a bit on the implementation of Long Text?

I found my a the majority of my users often switch to quick edit mode just to be able to see a bit more text.
I have also had a request to implement "Tooltip" UI option as found in other company's app where a Tooltip text box appears when hovering over a long text text with a users mouse - which I think is a fantastic option to consider

Also users will be able to control this themselves by selecting the relevant column type for their text requirements:
-Long Text = Text Wrap
-Text column type = No Text Wrap

In summary I would seriously consider implementing a two row text wrap, possibility of a scroll bar and or a Tootip implementation.

Take a look at the following GIF to show how handy it would be to provide users one extra line of text to review various records quickly in table view without needing to step in and out of detail view each time.

Optimising on Appsheet view types is probably the most important aspect of development as this is 95% of what the end user directly interacts with. 
All other appsheets features implementation (like actions, automations, data source management) can not excist without being able to see the data effectively.  So putting good focus on developing view types is important. 

I am so glad appsheet has realised this and has developed the Desktop view! I have had such positive feedback from all users I developing apps for. Keep up the good work!

Long Text wrap in table view.gif




I have also noticed a bug where columns with Long Text column type do not wrap properly when Long Text column is selected as header column in the detail view type. However it wraps properly when not selected as header.

See example below

Header column not wrapping properly.gif




Inconsistent Headers and Incomplete header columns

When Header text is short

Inconsistent sizes. In first image its two line and then changes into single line sometimes.

Screenshot 2023-02-12 at 8.23.04 PM.png

Screenshot 2023-02-12 at 8.23.25 PM.png

Screenshot 2023-02-12 at 8.23.45 PM.png
When Header text is long

The rest of text is missing and It could potentially have soo much effect if user does not notice it and sees a part of Item name as shown below.

Screenshot 2023-02-12 at 8.33.07 PM.png

 Screenshot 2023-02-12 at 8.24.48 PM.png

@Arthur_Rallu 

Hello thanks for flagging this! We are currently ramping up some changes to the Headers that should address this problem, if you're still seeing this at the end of next week (it should be rolled out to everyone by then) please let us know! 

i've found similar bug: i've 2 long text fields.

When moving in detail view in editing mode the field text box from multiline text reduce itself to one only line.

Is there a way to fix that annoying bug ?

(if possibile any chance to make the field text box higher according to the text that is in it so that is possible to edit long field text without to have to scrolling a lot?)