Form Disappeared

[Detlev Ott]

Hi there,

I am new to TFP and try to migrate all my data from Ninox to TFP. It worked pretty well so far but today I had to find out that a complete form has disappeared.

In the screenshot you can see that there are 3 forms linked to a form called “Jahr”. 2 are still in place but one – “Zahlerstande” – is no more where it should be.

Do you have any clue where I can find it?

Thank you very much in advance for your assistance.

Best regards from Germany,
Detlev

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[Brendan]

Hi Detlev,

One of the new things I added was a new Trashcan feature to Tap Forms Pro 1.3. But it’s disabled by default and you have to turn it on. You didn’t happen to turn it on before the form went missing, did you?

If so, then select Show Trash in the File menu.

There’s also a Hide Forms property you can enable on a form which will cause a form not to be shown on the sidebar. You can enable the Show hidden and empty forms option under the View menu to toggle that on and off. But I don’t think that’s the issue here because the Link to Form field doesn’t look like it’s connected to a form anymore.

I really don’t know, other than deleting the form manually on one device or another (and then syncing) that could cause the form to be deleted. There’s a very specific code path with a confirmation alert before an entire form could be deleted.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Detlev Ott]

Hi Brendan,

Thank you very much for your – as usual – very swift and detailed response.

The Trashcan would have been the life boat for the form – if activated. As it was not, work of nearly 1 week is gone with the wind. It was a learning curve in every sense of the word, but honestly frustrating as well. Nearly 70 formulas would need to be entered once again. But such is life…

Thanks again for your support,
Detlev

[Brendan]

Hi Detlev,

That’s very unfortunate. I’m very sorry for that and I have no idea how it could have just disappeared without any trigger.

If you’d like to email me a backup of your document, I could poke around inside the database to see if anything is there hidden away. I don’t think so, but it’s worth a look perhaps.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Detlev Ott]

Hi Brendan,

Thanks a lot for your nice words. Like you, I do not understand how the form disappeared without any warning.

Your offer to double check the backup. As the size is 64 GB+ it would be quite challenging to send it to you. But this doesn’t matter, I will take this 2nd run to create the form once again as an extra lesson to understand TFP a little bit better.

Thanks for your help!
Detlev

[Brendan]

Oh wow. Ya, 64 GB is HUGE! I’ve never heard of anyone having that large a database. Are you sure you didn’t mean MB?

[Detlev Ott]

You are totally right, it is MB, not GB. Sorry for confusion!

My trial period ends tomorrow, so I have to decide whether to stay with Ninox or to go on the migration path to Tap Forms. There are pros and cons for both products. After checking my app statistics on the App Store I found out that I had my first Tap Forms app back in 2011 – boy, that‘s 15 years now. Time is running. In 2021 it was updated to version 5 and currently the Pro version is under observation. So why did I switch to Ninox and FileMaker Pro in between? Honestly – I don’t know. I think the main reason was that these products were used in the company I worked for. And I know there where some issues losing data – which for sure was my fault. Nevertheless I migrated to the other products.

What does mean all this for my decision? Staying with Tap Forms for 1 ½ decade – even if not in the drivers seat – is a strong signal that this app is something great. While switching to the other products I always came back to Tap Forms. The latest experiences with this app told me why. The development takes – a big thank you to Brendan – huge steps, the trashcan will help avoiding loss of data (perhaps regularly backups as well…) and the support is outstanding. Furthermore the community is here to help out or bring new inspirations.

Taking these facts into consideration there is only one solution: I will end the trial period tomorrow but continue with a subscription. There is so much of functionality within Tap Forms waiting to be revealed, so I am really looking forward to continuing this exciting journey.

Thank you all for being part of my decision – and sorry for this long piece of prose but I wanted to share my thoughts with you as you were directly involved.

[Brendan]

That’s great to hear Detlev! Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m glad you’ve always found your way back to Tap Forms. I do take pride in being able to provide personal support to every single Tap Forms customer out there, no matter which version they have or for how long they’ve owned Tap Forms.

64 MB is quite small actually, so the size of the database would not be a factor. 64 GB however, that would be a completely different story! :)

I’m thrilled you’re sticking with Tap Forms Pro!

[Detlev Ott]

Thank you very much for your nice words, Brendan. Your personal support is the driving factor, that makes you something special. And if you say, you support every customer, no matter which version they are using or how long they stay with Tap Forms, that definitely is the “Champions League” of customer service.

I am really glad to update to Tap Forms Pro! Yesterday I finished the transfer of the first database from Ninox in total and I have to say I am totally hooked with the seamless sync from Mac to iPhone and iPad. For me the layouts for every device is a great advantage of Tap Forms. With no additional work the universal layout is perfect for each single screen.

It is totally great and satisfying being part of the Tap Forms family.

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