WYSIWYG Rich Text editing

[Kirk_Masden]

This little tip is related to the use of RichText in our apps (cf. Rich Text Formatting - in Preview Program).

I find rich text capability to be very valuable in enhancing the UX of an app. Yet, as has been pointed out in the Rich Text Editor Control feature request and elsewhere, without WYSIWYG editing capability, the actual editing process can be rather difficult. I find this to be particularly true when editing rich text that I store in a cell of my Google Sheets spreadsheet. I can go back and forth between the spreadsheet cell and the AppSheet editor but the need to frequently wait for syncing to complete makes the process cumbersome.

Recently, I’ve started using MacDown, as shown below:

This, of course, is a Mac program but I hope to get some comments from Windows users regarding similar text editors that work there.

When I want to edit the HTML that I’ve put in a cell in my spreadsheet, I merely copy the text, pop it in the editor and work on it there. I can only type in the space on the left but the window on the right accurately confirms how the text will appear in the app. If I find an error on the right side and need to edit that out on the left, I often select some of the text from the right to search for the spot. It may not be ideal but it’s the best approach I’ve found so far. One thing I like is that MacDown doesn’t add any HTML tags that I don’t want; it merely shows me how my HTML will look in my app.

That’s all there is to my tip but I’d like to end by asking two related questions:

1. Mac users: Would you agree that MacDown is the best choice (at least among free editors)?
2. Windows users: What text editor would you recommend for Windows to do the sort of work I’ve described here?

[Rifad]

I’m currently working on developing a floating Chrome extension using open-source tools somehow directly integrating with appsheet column using API. I haven’t finished it yet, but I hope it’s successful. If it is, I’ll definitely share it with you sometime later.

[Rifad]

Introducing a Rich Text Editor for AppSheet - Google Cloud Community Here it is. I couldn’t get the extension to work, but I built a URL-based editor that directly integrates with your AppSheet table and columns.

[Tanzeel_Mustafa]

Absolutely agree. Rich text adds a lot of value to the UX, but editing HTML directly in a spreadsheet cell can make the experience unnecessarily cumbersome. The repeated AppSheet/Google Sheets sync cycle is especially frustrating when you need to make several formatting changes.

That’s actually the problem I was trying to solve with this lightweight rich-text editor. Instead of editing the underlying HTML in Sheets, you can open the editor directly from the app, make the changes in a WYSIWYG interface, and save the formatted content back to the AppSheet record.

It’s not intended to replace native AppSheet functionality, but rather to provide a practical workaround while a proper WYSIWYG RichText editor control is not available.