Before under the expression there was an explanation of the code, that is no longer there. Why is this feature removed ? now there is just green check mark.
That was a great little help for those who want to understand what is going on in that expression and who want to learn this platform. Whay is it removed now, can someone tell us???
This is the great way to drive away new people who want to understand this platform. With that explanation under the expression it was clear what has been done in the code, now someone who is less educated on coding has no clue what has been done in there.
Appsheet is advertised as no code developer platform so you can drive more people on here. i think this is the one more smart step to drive the off from this.
For example it was a great help when you are doing a long concatenate expression to see wher have you mised something, or when you are doing a "and or
You mentioned that the formula is changed, but why these two are from two different columns where the first one is a virtual and the second is a normal column?
Instead of using CONTAINS(), could you use IN() so it would be more simple. Possible?
Some of your CONTAINS() are missing the other quatation marks (row 7 and 8). At least fix them first.
The issue is not in the formula, but in the explanation of the formula that was once under the expression like shown in first image, now there is just green check mark.
We have some new people that started working on our apps, and that part was immensely useful for somebody that is starting, it explains what you have just wrote in expression line.
And helps you to notice and make changes.
i think this decision to exclude that was made by the people who now what they are doing and taught, this is unnecessary.
We recently removed this feature because it was generally not providing value to our customers.
The descriptions were verbose, and in many cases, more confusing than helpful.
We confirmed via an A/B test, where users without the description had more success in expression authoring and AppSheet in general than those with the description.
I 100% agree that making expressions easier to work with is essential for less technical users to achieve success in AppSheet. We have been actively working on improving this area of the product, and plan to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Coming improvements likely include:
continued expansion of autocompletions
formatting (which will help you visually detect issues easier)
better error messaging and display (which will make your mistakes more apparent and easier to fix)
improved experience for testing expressions (which is a great replacement for the description – rather than giving a rather poor text explanation of what your expression is doing, you can see if your expression produces the result you expect)
better display of data availability
with many other improvements being considered.
hi sorry for the late replay, we have done our testing now after four weeks, and it is very big problem without an explanation now.
Before it was a lot easier to see what is going on that code, after some time you open something that you have wrote long time ago, and you can just read an explanation and everything was explained nicely, now you have to waist your time looking at the code to see what the ■■■■■is going on there… so on whom ever you did your tests on must have been a group of people who doesn’t use this platform on day to day basis and doesn’t have old apps that you forgot what was written and for what reason.
And for the new people the time it takes to get the code right and to understand what is going on, is mind boggling. you just turn off the thing nobody had a problem with, you decided lets turn this off… lets ■■■■■this up a little more.
So very good job man with your AB tests you have done.
You are right on this. Inital days I used to look into this description always to understand how the code works.
@wabrian Is there any ETA ? There are many many promised things that never delivered in years. Anyways your explanation looks like its going to be better. Looking forward.
This looks good too. But what exactly will be the difference?
I have to second this sentiment Appsheet staff. I much prefer the explanation as before. Or perhaps this could be a toggled setting in UX since there those of us who are already used to this feature and found it extremely helpful in understanding how to build correct expressions and error prevention.
i totally agree, let the people use that explanation if they want to, why is this just turned off.
i think a lot of people have the same opinion but they have given up on giving you any feedback, because it is like talking to a wall. A wall that it making things worse without any explanation why.
Let’s hope that the “better expression testing experience” coming out in the first half of 2025 is awesome and worth the short-term inconvenience.
(Also, did anyone A/B tested the current check-mark icon verification v.s. the expression explanation AND verification? I really don’t see how the former yielded better results. In the Developers we trust.)
Yea, people are not communicating here any more like they use to. this was the place to learn appsheet now it is place to see how bad the things are going.
There is no respect for existing users and their habits just turn the ■■■■off and lets see what happens. Some very smart guy there did some A/B testing… so who cares about users, he knows the best. He knows about how it is not providing value to the users what a joke.
they turned the explanations off (resolved the big problem there ) but PDF making is from stone ages and that is ok, that is not a big deal.
that you have to wait a life time to make one ■■■****■■■■pdf file, and to be shown in the app is impossible without “magic”.
So your a/b testing is worth the wile with explanation under the code, that is what you are doing and resolving. But you have no time or resources for testing print pdf from the app or making pdf in milliseconds not in centuries… @Praveen Seshadri please come back.
) but PDF making is from stone ages and that is ok, that is not a big deal.