If you have an app for a large product catalog, with screens for
every product, having a large list screen leading to all products may
not be practical. This tip explores an alternative.
Calculating the number of days, months or years between two dates can
be done with DATEDIF in Excel, or using plain formulas in Calcapp.
These formulas are explored in this tip.
Prevent users from seeing certain information, or from moving on to
the next screen, if a button has not been pressed. This can be
achieved through a formula button and a hidden field.
When copying and pasting fields and screens from one app to another,
it really helps if both are displayed side-by-side. This tip explores
how to achive this.
Iteration means that a value is calculated by performing a number of
steps, where the result of the previous step is fed into the current
step. Use REDUCE to implement iteration with Calcapp.
Can the switch field selections made by a user be summed up in a
single text field sentence? Yes, and there are two ways to do it, one
using old-style formulas and one using the new formula engine we
introduced in November.
In this post, we create an app that displays all legal US holidays
for a given year. The app adapts a formula created for Microsoft
Excel and uses new functions introduced with our new formula engine,
like FORMATDATE, FILTER and TEXTJOIN.
When formatting dates, you can choose from five pre-defined date
formats. What if you want a custom date format? For output fields,
you can use text fields and formulas to achieve this. This post
explores two formula approaches.
If a function isn't returning the value you expect, you need to look
at the parameters it receives by creating new temporary fields
visualizing the parameters. To do so with an array, you need to
convert it to a text string first using the TEXTJOIN function.
Ranges are an effective means of creating arrays containing many
elements. However, it is easy to lose track of what elements they
contain, which can have surprising results. This tip explores this
topic in depth.
When making changes to an app, you often need to share copies of your
changed app with a small circle of users before letting these changes
go live for all users. Read this tip to learn how this is done.
PDF reports created with Calcapp will only become truly customizable
when Calcapp 4 fully arrives. In the meantime, use third-party
services through Zapier to enable custom-designed PDF documents
today.
Buttons can perform actions through third-party services like Zapier.
In this tip, we demonstrate how a single button can perform multiple
such actions.
Private apps by default don't include the signed-in user's email
address in reports. You can include this information using a simple
formula. This tip also explains how to include information on the
tags associated with a user.
Converting values from one measurement system to another using plain
formulas is tedious and error-prone. Use the CONVERT formula function
instead to perform these conversions. It supports more than one
hundred different units.
Superscripts and subscripts appear above and below the baseline of
the text, respectively, and are useful when writing mathematical
formulas. Use them today in Calcapp Creator by copying and pasting
the characters in this post.
Calcapp supports making fields required, so that your users can't
move on to the next panel or submit reports before your forms have
been properly filled out. This tip walks you through the steps you
need to take to make fields required.
What if you want to limit the number of characters users can type in
a text field? This tip uses validation to alert your users if they
type too much text and show you how to include only a limited number
of text field characters in reports.
Reports sent by your users normally contain all fields of your app or
only the fields of the current panel. This tip demonstrates how you
can select precisely what fields to include, which cuts down on the
size of the reports.
To get the number of hours, minutes or seconds between two dates,
subtract one date from the other and use the HOUR, MINUTE or SECOND
formula functions. HOUR won't return a number greater than 23 and
MINUTE and SECOND won't return a number greater than 59. Read on to
learn how to fix this.
Reset buttons enable users to conveniently wipe out all data entered
in an app, but pressing them accidentally can ruin days of data
entry. This tip explores a number of techniques for making it harder
to press them accidentally, including hiding them unless the user
confirms that they should be shown.
Date and time fields can be instructed to display a default value
that appears when a user opens your app. You need to use formulas to
set these values. This tip contains a number of useful such formulas,
including one that selects a date seven days after the current date
as the initial value.
Use the IF formula function to make logical comparisons when
calculating values. To use multiple criteria, use the logical
functions AND, OR and NOT. To make formulas read better, consider
using Calcapp's &&, || and ! operators instead.
How do you convey that a field is 62 percent invalid? By assigning a
background color to the field that gets more intense the less valid
the field is! Read this tip to learn how to use the new BRIGHTEN
function to achieve this.
You can use formulas to calculate the initial values of input fields,
which are the values displayed before your user changes them. These
formulas typically take into account the values entered on a previous
panel.
Text fields with multiple lines work great for displaying text you
"calculate" using a formula. Read this tip to learn how to include
quotation marks in calculated text.
There is no built-in way to display a time duration in your apps, but
you can easily use formulas to achieve the same result. Read this tip
to learn how to display time durations like "1:05", indicating that
one hour and five minutes have elapsed.
Spreadsheet formulas usually use position-based references like A2 to
refer to cells while Calcapp formulas use names. Rewriting formulas
manually when you're converting a spreadsheet to an app is tedious
and error-prone. This post explains how you can make Calcapp Creator
do the work for you.
By maintaining multiple versions of your app, you can refer back to a
prior incarnation at a later date. It also enables you to share your
progress on a new app version with beta testers, without disturbing
the main version used by your regular users. Learn to duplicate your
app to access these features.
You can use data validation to present an error message alongside an
output number field. Sometimes you want to display the message in the
field itself, though. This blog post shows you two ways to accomplish
this.
Making hidden fields visible can be useful when you're developing
your app. Add a "debug mode" switch to your first screen and tie the
Visible property of all hidden fields to this debug switch to easily
make all hidden fields visible. Then, hide the switch before you
share the app.