Search Results for 'script'

[Sam Moffatt]

Apple have a long history of making platform shifts relatively effortlessly. When Apple moved from PPC to Intel, they introduced Rosetta that ran PPC apps seamlessly on the Intel hardware. It was an amazing transition for me when I migrated my PPC Mac over to a new Intel MBP. Everything just worked, it was an amazing experience. So amazing that for years I used a bunch of command line tooling that were PPC compiled and didn’t notice until I upgraded to Lion. Now not everything shifted 100% but a good chunk of what I needed worked without me even noticing. Apple implemented a similar emulation system for going from the 68k to PPC as well.

What I see in Project Catalyst is the start of Apple’s ARM unification strategy, catalysed from the ARM side of the fence. Microsoft’s approach of throwing out a version of Windows that works on ARM without the apps that make it a compelling experience fell flat. Project Catalyst allows Apple to work through the compatibility layer of running iOS/iPadOS apps on the Mac to give themselves a head start. I suspect once they’re happy with it is when we might see ARM powered MacOS laptop devices. The WWDC reveal from there is simple:

Here at Apple we believe in pushing the limits. That’s why in 2007 we introduced the iPhone which revolutionised the phone market by providing a touch native device that worked with your fingers and redefined what it meant for mobile web browsing. In 2010 we brought to the world the iPad, our take on human first tablet computing. We leveraged the power of the existing iOS ecosystem to kickstart the iPad and it’s only grown from there. In 2019, we released iPadOS to leverage the powerful computers that exist in our iPad line. We also released Project Catalyst to give our iOS and iPadOS developers the ability to bring their applications back to the Mac. Now in 2021, we’re proud to introduce our first MacBook Air laptop powered by an ARM chip with all of your favourite iOS apps accessible on the Mac directly via Project Catalyst. If you’re a developer in the room here today who hasn’t looked into leveraging Project Catalyst then I’d encourage you to get started today and we’ve got a wide range of sessions here at WWDC to get you up to speed on the latest features and capabilities of Project Catalyst.

An alternative world is they ship both one of their ARM chips and an Intel chip together with the lower powered ARM chips running on the ARM side and the Intel native running on their side but with the “this app is consuming more power” notification. They’ve got enough space to put in one of their

For an application like Tap Forms I could see leveraging Project Catalyst to bring it back to the Mac, I could almost see a Tap Forms via Project Catalyst and a Tap Forms Pro on the desktop. As someone today using an iPad Pro with a Logitech keyboard, I’d love more keyboard shortcut support in Tap Forms on iPadOS (ability to run scripts with the same keyboard shortcut as on the desktop would be great!).

Of course all of this doesn’t solve having to rewrite a lot of code and implement form layouts on iOS/iPadOS. That’s still a mountain to climb.

[captain]

Thanks a lot for your quick reply and explanation! That’s what gives this software a big plus for me: the fact that there’s someone explaining the reasons behind decisions about feature implementation, way better than having some big company not seem to care at all..!

If you’re actually going to offer subscriptions, count me in as a first customer. I’d be more than willing to pay for it, especially since I’ve been using your software for years and only paid $50+- !

You can count on me promoting this stuff in the large computer repair communities if you ever decide to take the jump (or rather, climb Mt. Everest:-) )

[Brendan]

Hi Captain,

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your use case for custom layouts on iOS.

It’s a big daunting task to start working on and I guess that’s why I’ve been reluctant to start on it. It’s like being at the bottom of Mount Everest and thinking that I should climb that thing, but not knowing how it’ll be once I get to the top. With so many things about it that have to jive with the Mac version, it’s quite the herculean feat. I guess it’s a bit like jumping out of a plane (which I’ve done a bunch of times). You just have to decide to do it. But also adding a big feature like that to the iOS version also makes me think that maybe it’s time to do a subscription for that feature. That way the customers who want that would help to pay for the development of it and I could earn a bit of a recurring revenue, rather than earning revenue only from new sales as I do now.

Just thinking out loud about that. Not making any decisions yet.

Thanks,

Brendan

[captain]

I keep checking back here every couple of months or so to see if there is any hint of some progress of adding customlayouts to the iOS version..

Maybe a little background might help understand the need for this feature (and my begging here) :
I run a repairshop, and have customers sign a form upon handing in their device.
i input all their data in tapforms, and then want to hand them out the Terms&conditions for the repair, which they have to agree and sign for.

My tapforms database is tailormade and perfect for all the day-to-day stuff such as keeping track of open-repairs, alerting me of long-lasting open quotes, parts-orders, open invoices, etcetera.
The reason i still haven’t switched to an online-cloud based database (such as Repairshopr.com or Repairdesk.co) is that firstly, i don’t pay a subscription (even though tapforms is worth that, don’t get me wrong), and secondly, i can customize my database much more to my liking and whenever i want.

One reason i am now strongly debating moving to repairshopr.com is their functionality that allows me to run an iOS app on iPad, that displays a neat looking second-screen with my company logo, a greeting, a scrollable display of the Terms&Conditions and an open Signature field. After signing, the customer gets a complete intake-form in their email.
That way, i can move away from the bloody paperwork i am now forced to use.

I imagine there are way more uses for a custom layout than just this scenario, but how cool would it be if i could display a nice clean custom-layout on the tapforms app on iPad, with all of the above, have everything sync perfectly and run a paper-less shop?

I have tried using the iPad app to have customers sign, but it’s too much of a hassle.
I have to have a paper-version of the Terms&Conditions next to the iPad, then wait for the iPad app to update/sync, navigate to the new record and find the signature field, wait for it to sync back over to my desktop, and then print it out, all in all; too much room for error that makes the device-handin too much of a hassle.

A custom-layout on iOS would really help in decluttering this workflow, and i can imagine so many more uses for businesses like me. (for example, i could do a take-out-form, that customers sign when they’re picking up their device, or build a separate form that displays a price-list type of form that they can use to inform themselves, lots of other ideas).
I don’t want to be whining, but this really is a very very very valuable feature, that i imagine would bring a lot more businessto tapforms.
Hopefully, this post will help stress the importance of the feature, and possibly give other users an incentive to post their specific possible use-case and need for the feature as well..

Brendan, thanks a lot so far, your work is highly appreciated here and don’t know what i’d do without you!

[Wonnie Bad]

Hi!

I created a script (actually copied, pasted and adjusted one of Sam’s wonderworks) to copy records from one form to another.
In the copied record a photo sometimes shows, other times it won’t show.
It will show the size, and the name, just not the image itself.

Is this a known bug, is there a workaround? I ask because I’m not entirely sure I understand all that’s being said (being Dutch, and all) also the answer to some of the search result for this topic are hidden behind the ‘become a beta member’ wall. Which I wouldn’t mind :)

Best regards,
Wonnie

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[Richard Bullen]

The “Saved Search” I created is not returning the expected results and so I’m hoping someone can point out the fault in my logic.

Saved Search Description

I have two fields for rating that allow values of 1 to 5

The goal is to select records where the value of both fields is either 2 or 3.

First Line: All Are True
Second Line All Are True
Third Line Value one is greater than 1
Fourth Line Value One is less than 4
Fifth Line All Are True
Sixth Line Value 2 is greater than 1
Seventh Line Value 2 is less than 4
—————
This returns some records with Value 2 at 4 or 5

I’d appreciate any points as to what I’m missing.

Thanks.

[Sam Moffatt]

@anotheralex are you modifying records and their changes aren’t showing up or are you modifying form scripts and those changes aren’t showing up in Tap Forms? It might help to document in detail all of the steps you’re taking and where you think it’s not working.

I create and modify records via CouchDB directly and generally haven’t had any issues with those changes not making it back to my Tap Forms instance (auto sync is on for me). I do have the annoyance that Tap Forms will often reset it’s state when those changes come in though.

Something that occurs to me as possible is that there might be some sort of weird conflict being introduced that is being resolved by the Tap Forms app in it’s favour rather than yours.

@laird4444 Auto-sync is only an option for CouchDB and Cloudant sync. My understanding is that iCloud and Nearby always replicate changes as they are made. To disable for CouchDB/Cloudant, go to Tap Forms > Preferences > Sync and select either “Apache CouchDB” or “IBM Cloudant”. You should see ‘Auto-sync’ as an option just above the ‘Sign In’/’Sign Out’ button.

[Sam Moffatt]

If you’re doing an import flow you might want to add a field with a flag on it to control if you already did the search/replace on the record already. Depending on what your search/replace looks for, running it more than once might be problematic for you.

Another trick you might be interested in is creating a saved search using “date created” to specify when you import the records to ensure that you only select and modify the records that were recently created. A slight change to Brendan’s script is to change:

var records = form.getRecords();

To something like:

var records = search.getRecords();

You’ll need to be in the search for the search object to exist but then it’ll only apply the script to the currently searched records.

[Another Alex]

Thanks Brendan. I appreciate knowing Sync Now isn’t supposed to work.

But it’s not syncing when data is saved to the database, for sure. My current deploy pushes stuff to the database, pulls it down and does a diff to ensure it’s there. Then I tab over to tap forms, CMD-W to close the window, <enter> to reopen it, Shift-CMD L to reopen the log, and then a bunch of field refreshing. to confirm I didn’t blow anything up.

Any idea why it’s not syncing when the database updates? Having scripts in a repo and using a real editor has been life changing, but this snag is a bummer.

[matt coxon]

Hi Does anyone have a script that will do find and replace for text fields. I can use the advanced find and replace, but I would need to do it daily as it’s an import. I want to do it in tapforms and not manipulate the csv file before hand.

Thanks very much

Matt

[Sam Moffatt]

Logging in and out should still be sync’ing, especially if you’re seeing traffic from the Tap Forms client in the CouchDB server logs. You could look at the Console.app on the Mac and filter for Tap Forms to see if there are any weird log messages there.

I’m assuming that the last uploaded / downloaded is matching more or less the same time as you opened up the document or hit log in again. If that doesn’t change to the current date and time then that would indicate a problem.

How are you validating that the changes aren’t propagating to the CouchDB instance?

One thing I’ve done in some of my documents is to create two new fields: a website field and a script field. I then put this in the script field:

// couchdb_link	
record.setFieldValue('fld-c53b97ba79844c56b96de5f556490519', 'http://10.0.1.26:5984/_utils/#database/db-5af742cf299940b1b9ad32e7fae7ec41/' + record.getId());
record.getUrl();

You’ll have to replace the CouchDB server IP address and field ID (fld-c53b97ba79844c56b96de5f556490519 is the website field for me) but this gives me the ability to quickly jump into Fauxton to see the record and also gives me a copy of the tapformz link for reference as well. I’ve used this to quickly jump into seeing what CouchDB thinks about the state of the record.

[Sam Moffatt]

I’m going to propose something that is a little orthogonal to what I think you’re trying to do but might get you to where you want to be. Here are some ideas.

<b>Pick list for username</b>

If you’re after a pick list populated with values from another form, step one is to go into Preferences > Lists > Pick Lists. Create a new pick list and select “Use values from field” to select the form and field in your main form with the usernames in it. This should give you a unique list with duplicates removed that will update as the values change.

The next step is to set up your field as a pick list and point it to the pick list you just setup.

<b>Link to Form JOIN</b>

The next step is to create a “Link to Form” field, set it to JOIN and then you’ll want to join on the two username fields. This will give you a table in the record filtered by username. You can build a script field to process the records of the children to do some work.

<b>Use a Saved Search</b>

In the top right corner next to the search field should be a filter icon that lets you create a saved search. You can use this to filter on what ever you want and update it as necessary. A filter could be on username and then you can use the multicolumn list view (MCLV) to get a table of results.

<b>Use the Form grouping option</b>

Depending on what you’re after, you can set the form grouping option in tandem with the multicolumn list view (MCLV). There is a button, on the MCLV located on the right near where your Form panel would be, that lets you control the sections that are automatically generated. If you set the form grouping to use the username field, it’ll automatically create sections for each username. This won’t hide any of the usernames but with section headings enabled you’ll get nice little headings. You should be enable totalling as well based on your field configuration settings.

[Sam Moffatt]

I did consider having a table field but decided against using that because it’d require a script field to make it work properly. I feel that could be a pretty powerful way of modelling the data as well because it encapsulates it in a single form instead of having two forms. If you were willing to put the time into building a script to basically create a new day then a table would work well, especially if ordering is important. I ultimately ditched that because it’d need a script to make it work really smoothly and went for a design that wouldn’t require scripting but should work reasonably efficiently.

If you do go down the scripting pathway, having a form script the days form (either in the table or link to form setup for recording the actual measurements) that is hooked into the prompter can make it a little quicker to do data entry on iOS. Tapping into each field and saving is a little time consuming and using the prompter can make that a little quicker. I’m using this with a barcode scanning use case where I scan an item barcode and a box barcode via prompter (to capture the enter key) to quickly update fields.

[Another Alex]

I’m in an editor, pushing scripts to the couchDB we’re hosting. When I make changes, I have tried CMD-Shift-S to sync, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. I’ve waited sometimes over 20 minutes for the thing to sync. Is CMD-Shift-S supposed to sync manually? Am I missing something?

[Brendan]

That’s a great description Sam!

I wonder if maybe instead of a Sets form, a Sets Table field would work on the Workouts form?

The Sets form could get its exercise information from the Exercise form, but have the extra fields to record the weights, rep, and date.

It would remove one less level from the relationship hierarchy.

Then when a Workout is to be created, you can just select the appropriate exercises from the Exercise form to populate the Sets Table field.

Just an idea.

Thanks,

Brendan