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I’m posting this as a “question” but it’s really more of a comment and a request for improvement.
@Steve has written a nice article on how to use a hyperlink expression to create an system-generated action that will take the user to an external URL:
Steve’s explanation is fine, but AppSheet needs to work on this feature in my view. Here are some issues:
- Text wrapping doesn’t work
If you make a text virtual column and then manually make your own action to attach to it, all is well. If, however, you rely on the hypertext expression, no wrapping. I’ve written about this here:
Make hyperlink text wrap properly - “Launch external” is poorly integrated
I’ve written about this problem here:
URL to launch externally instead of the appview - #20 by Kirk_Masden - The function fails to record the “Display inline” line automatically
I haven’t written about this yet so here’s my explanation.
Today I used the hyperlink expression to make the following link:
The system automatically generated an action for me and correctly designated the “Prominence” as “Display inline” but failed to finish the job by naming the column to attach it to.
Obviously, the default should be for the action to be attached to the column that holds the hyperlink that caused the action to be made in the first place – but that doesn’t happen.
Finally, I’d like to point out that when I have big tables and am concerned about the performance of my app, I don’t use this hypertext function. Instead, I make the linking action myself and then attach it to the appropriate text column. For some discussion, see the following:
