How do I change a column type with a formula, for example, from "Thumbnail" to "Show"?

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
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How do I change a column type with a formula, for example, from “Thumbnail” to “Show”? If this can be done with a formula, we can easily organize columns in a table, as “Show” columns cannot be displayed in table views. As shown in the example below.

:small_orange_diamond:Type column Thumbnail (status_SVG_table is displayed)

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20260720_161526575×1280 108 KB

:small_orange_diamond:Type column show (status_SVG_table disappeared)

20260720_161642
20260720_161642575×1280 91.3 KB

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Hi @Syamsudin ,

I am afraid show type columns are not available in the table views. They are available only in form and detail views. Please refer the help article

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image1077×267 29.9 KB

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image1077×190 21.8 KB

Also changing a column type programmatically using an expression is not available in AppSheet.

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Thank you for your response @Suvrutt_Gurjar My goal is to use show type to dynamically manage table columns for end users. If it can be done with a formula, it means we can dynamically manage table columns according to user preferences by creating an enumlist for the columns to be displayed. which will be hidden, the type show displayed is other than the type show for the columns in the table. So it can’t be done if a formula is created. Thank you for the information.

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You are welcome and thank you for your revert.

I thought in your latest post, your requirement slightly changed. Earlier post mentioned using show columns in table view and changing the column type as the following statement suggests.

The above facility is NOT available in AppSheet. This means changing the column type from say decimal to number programmatically.

Your latest post mentions below

As per my understanding this implies showing column c1, c2, c3 if user A selects so and showing columns c2, c3, c5 user B selects so. Even this I believe is not possible easily in AppSheet for the table view.

Maybe you could do so for the two columns of the same type, for example , displaying contents from either text column T1 or T2 based on user selection. You could also change the display name based on user selection. However in each case you will need a virtual column to display the contents of the either of the two columns. So the implementation could be messier.

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Thanks for the suggestion @Suvrutt_Gurjar ,so I can also create two types of columns with the same data (dual data columns with different column types). If hide (not selected) then the true one is the column with the show type. If selected then the column type is other than show. Thanks for the idea