My TapForms wish list: Column-width woes, direct navigation, and more.

[Frances Cherman]

My TapForms “wish list,” ranked by priority:

NAVIGATION BEHAVOR

• As I mentioned in another thread, with a database of over 80 fields, being able to move directly (without scrolling) to any field in the layout is essential. This is especially critical because I have many note fields with lots of embedded images, so I’m constantly scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I mentioned in that other thread that when I clicked a given cell in the multi-column view, I intuitively expected to be taken to that record and field in the layout. This option could be controlled by a preference setting or a modifier key, but I’d rather it be a preference. Alternatively (but not ideally), perhaps clicking a field in the Form list could take me there, but that would mean sacrificing screen real estate.
• It would be lovely to have the option to not display the entire content of the Note fields in the default layout. Ideally, this field could be manually resizable to show just as much or as little as I want.

COLUMN-VIEW BEHAVIOR

• I would like the view of my multi-column list to stay put. When I delete a field or do practically anything, the multi-column view shifts so that the field I had selected (not the one I’m deleting) is no longer selected, or at least is no longer in view. Since I have many fields, finding my place again is tedious.
• Column widths in the multi-column view seem to change randomly, truncating the label text. Since I have several long field labels, manually resizing the columns every few minutes is a pain – especially since the depth of the label row can’t be adjusted to accommodate multiple lines.
  
  What would be ideal is all or some combination of the following behaviors:
  1. Column widths stay as I set them.
  2. Column widths can be adjusted proportionally and simultaneously (i.e., dragging one column would adjust the width of all columns at a percentage of the original width.
  3. At the click of a button, columns resize automatically to accommodate the complete text of the label. Ideally, I could choose whether the app would accomplish this by adjusting the column widths or by adjusting the depth of the label row.
  4. The depth of the label row should be manually adjustable by dragging.
• In multi-column view, the column for attached files is empty, even when there are files attached to that record. It should display either thumbnail(s) or at least the file names.
  

NICE-TO-HAVE

• Now that I know how to attach multiple files to a record (thank you, Leo!), I find that there is a lovely, wide column of empty space after the Name, Kind, and Size columns. In that space, I would love to see the “Comment” field from the file information (I often put the source URL there), or, if that’s not practical, I would love to be able to manually enter notes about the file in that column. It would be especially useful since the first column shows no thumbnail, just the Preview.app icon.
• I would like to be able to easily (i.e., without exporting) copy a text-based list of all field labels (and only the labels – not the data), for the purpose of, say, pasting that list into a document. In Excel, I would copy the header row, but in TapForms, you can’t select only the header row. When you select a record in the multi-column view, the header row is highlighted, so you would think that copying the record would also copy the labels, but it doesn’t. I also tried copying the field labels from the Form panel, but that doesn’t work either.

I hope other users will chime in about these suggestions. Thanks again for your hard work.

[Brendan]

Hi Frances,

Thanks for your detailed issues and feature request report. There’s a lot to digest here.

[Author]

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