Edit the record on the page or in a popup?

[martin10]

Dear All,

I am a week into building my app. I have been creating records in a popup and then editing them in the same. But I aslo need users to be able to view the record itself. So I am finding that I am buidling 2 pages for everything, 1 popup for create/edit and then 1 for displaying the record data.

Is this normal practice?

I’d rather have a smaller popup for a create ‘wizard’ but then the record page with the ability to hit the edit button and edit on the page. Possible?

Would I create a page full of input fields to achieve this? Doesn’t feel right. Help appreciated…

[joseph.farinhas]

Hey There! Normally what i do, depending on specific circumstances, i have my page display the entries and a popup for edit/new entries to minimize my users from flip flopping back and fourth through pages. The same popup for new entry can be used to edit entry if you send the correct data when opening the popup. Let me know if you need help with that but that is the practice i use unless there is a specific reason otherwise (either for workflow or easability).

[martin10]

Hi Joseph,

That is how I am set up. I have that working nicely. But it does mean I need to create 2 pages - 1 with all my fields as inputs and then 1 with all my fields to display to the user. Right?

What I wondered was if I had a popup wizard with inputs for only the important fields for creation, once created, a record can be accessed on it’s own page, with an edit button that turns the page into some sort of ‘edit mode’. Possible?

[mangooly]

Hi @martin10,

From a technical point of view you can use the same form for displaying the field in view mode or in edit mode. You can use conditions to show one or the other. You can even show an input or similar elements in read only format (ie, no border, no padding, disabled so the user cant edit the field, etc.).

From a UX perspective it depends on what you want to accomplish for the user. If its a small simple change and the user will constantly change an item form a list it can make sense to make a change in a quick layer or popup on the same page. If it’s a long form and the user will not change different items from a list it makes sense to send them to a new page or even open the data on a popup or sliding screen. It all depends on many factors. If you look at my example www.keepsy.app (you have to signup) you’ll be able to see an example of what I think you are trying to accomplish. It uses the same elements for both read and edit mode, the advantage is that the clicking between modes is very fast. Data is loaded quickly once the page is loaded.

Regards
Manuel

[martin10]

I think I’m going to need a bit of both. What is this ‘edit mode’ you speak of?

[martin10]

Ah, having watched Gaby’s video here I see that ‘edit mode’ is achieved with conditional styling and having all fields as input fields.

I’m worried that this will limit the field types I’d otherwise have from the ‘Visual Elements’ panel, or are they largely the same?

[joseph.farinhas]

Visual Elements are unable to be changed by the user unless they are tied to an input the user can type in or checkbox etc.

Sorry as I was on mobile earlier. The way I have it setup is 3 different items. Display page for all entries the user has created. View popup which is used to show the user the entire entry and only having critical info on the display page. And a new/edit popup where the user can either create a new entry or using the same inputs edit an existing popup.

The user clicks on an entry on the entry page. It will popup the entry_popup. If the user selects the edit button, It starts workflow show element>new/edit_popup and passing the entry_popup ‘thing’ ( you have to set the new/edit_popup data type to the same ‘thing’.

A key factor to having this work is having the new/edit_popup not be able to be closed suing the ‘esc’ key (it is a checkbox settings on the popup settings). This way you can have either a cancel button or save button. Cancel will clear the info on the popup (so it will be ready to display the next item the user might click on) and save button will trigger a workflow to make changes to a ‘thing’ (current new/edit_popup’s thing)

Hope that makes a little more sense.

[mangooly]

Hi @martin10,

You can use conditions to show or hide fields for view or edit mode.

For example for a date I use 3 dropdowns for day, month and year. But when I show the date in view mode I use the text element to show day, month and year in any format I want (ie. November 10, 2017). More usable and you can add comas or different date formats using conditions.

[martin10]

Thanks guys. I’ve gone with edit on the page as it suits me best, plus a popup to create a new record with the most important fields. This video was great https://youtu.be/go_ZuyCiQFA but thanks to the forum once again, I think I have this subject ‘down pat’.