SOLUTION (rough): Get a List of Text inside of a Cell (without using Toolbox)
We’ve got TWO OPTIONS here -
1 = Custom States
2= Make a change to your DB to make a text
OPTION #1
Basically, the idea is to generate and save as a custom state a STAND ALONE TEXT VALUE that is pre-formatted to be used in the POPULATE workflow. This Text Value needs to include the “,” value between each list item.
Here is my Database structure basics:
Top Level: Order
Tier 2: -List of Locations associated to the Order (a Location is a separate DB Thing)
Tier 3: – The Name of the Location (stored as a text field on each individual Location)
Format the initial search like you have for others in the Populate Action (make sure the Sort by is the same as well). I’m using the Group By: function to keep each Orders List of Location together, then pulling them as a group with the “Group By:” feature on the list. Format the text as the list of names, with the delimiter “,” and it should be ready to save as a text field in a Custom State.
Be sure to put the Custom State BEFORE the Populate Action in the Custom Event workflow.
Use the Custom State as a value for your search in the Populate workflow. (i put my Custom State on the page level)
BEWARE: This is a rough workaround and probably will not work very well if you have more than a couple of hundred entries. I’m averaging about a 30-second load/populate time for about 300 Locations on a List of about 125 Orders. The lag time is borderline frustrating as a User but still better than using Toolbox for a noob like me.
If anyone can do this search using Agolia my initial thought is that it may be significantly faster.
OPTION #2)
The alternate for some of us to work around this Cell issue may be to save the text value of the Thing (List of Location Names) while adding/editing/removing them from an Order during the normal course of work. This would save a great deal of time on this problem. If you are not too far along in Dev. to implement a small workflow change I would recommend this route over trying to run this complicated search each time.
You can make large batch changes using the scheduler (Schedule API Workflow on a List - which would be at the Order Level, or whatever the Search Date Type is for the rest of the Populate Action) which we found to be very efficient and safe on the entry level plan.
As a newbie I found the Toolbox plugin limiting on the number of examples and documentation on how to implement it on a basic level, I see how it could be used but do not have what it takes to learn the basic Java to implement. (sigh…)
I hope this helps someone else!
This is still by far the best tables plugin I have found in Bubble. Thank you @BubbleSam.