Suggestion for Adding Text Formatting, Coloring, Bordering, and Line Break Features in AppSheet UX

[hien_nguyen]

Hi Team Dev c/c @Adam-google @Peter-Google 

I might be one of the most frequent contributors to the AppSheet forum, having submitted numerous feature requests among the thousands that remain pending without feedback or updates. We've been loyal to AppSheet for many years, but it's genuinely disappointing that the development team rarely listens and improves the application to enhance user experience since joining Google.

Currently, all View customizations in AppSheet seem to be default, very basic, and unable to be tailored for a more user-friendly interface.

AppSheet lacks useful features such as timeline, kanban, and group view with multiple subtotal columns.

Additionally, AppSheet does not allow text formatting options such as bold, italic, or line breaks in deck, table, or chart views. Users often want to make small adjustments to make the interface more intuitive and user-friendly, but these adjustments are not possible.

Why do you keep focusing on developing the AppSheet database and integrating AI, even though it is not yet truly useful, while ignoring these essential basic features?

[JPAlpano]

You can do basic formatting using Format Rules. But I agree, it's not too straightforward as you will have to add format rules for each and every single field you want to format. 

There is also the use of HTML or Markdowns feature for LongText columns to customize Detail Views but it's still a lot of work just to do some basic formatting and layout.

[Rifad]

I would suggest using a combination of longtext and SVG to create beautiful dynamic visuals. It took me a tug of war between back-and-forth communication with both the community and the AppSheet team to ensure that the longtext img src tag supports SVG and scales to the window as well. But yes, it was worth the fight (I mean, not literally), but it did require some effort and time to explain things to them and chase them to get it done (usually they don't, but they did).


Here is the implementation: 

[Denzil_Snyman]

@Rifad any chance you would share the SVG code for that purchase order image in longtext....

I am trying the SVG approach with some success but not to this extent and would love to step up my UX game...