Using AirTable we have created a library of several hundred resources on a certain topic which we want to share on a website. The AirTable read-only link works perfectly on a computer, bringing up the whole library and then allowing viewers to search, sort, filter, download, and view a full record according to their needs. However on a mobile device, people can see all the library entries, and tapping each brings up each the full record, but I was not able to figure out how to activate the sort, filter and search functions. Can anyone help?
+35This is going to be hard to believe, so you’ll want to sit down for this one.
Sadly, Airtable has never figured out that the majority of people browse the Internet on a mobile device, so for some unknown reason, they have never fixed this massive & glaring problem.
Whenever you share a view link, you only get the sort, filter, group, and search options on a desktop browser, not a mobile browser. :man_shrugging:
Welcome to the upside-down world of Airtable, where every feature is half-baked. :crazy_face: To me, it feels like Airtable rushes to roll out the “minimum acceptable standard” for each one of their features, but then never goes back to finish any of the features that they’ve previously rolled out.
I would highly recommend that everybody send an email to support@airtable.com to request that they fix this, but I have to warn you in advance that they rarely (if ever) listen to user feedback.
One partial workaround to this problem would be to change your mobile browser’s settings to display airtable.com pages as a desktop browser, but then you’ve got a completely different problem — the content no longer fits on your phone’s screen, so you have to scroll endlessly in all directions just to see your data. However, you ARE able to expand each record, which makes it a bit easier to see the contents of one record at a time. When you expand each record, it actually DOES fit the content horizontally to fit your screen, so you can easily scroll through each record’s data that way.
Otherwise, for a genuine mobile browsing experience, you’d have to turn to an external tool — such as one of the tools offered by MiniExtensions.com, which are all optimized for mobile browsers.
If you need someone to help you setup MiniExtensions.com (or other 3rd-party tools) for your needs, I am an expert Airtable consultant and you can feel free to reach me through my website at scottworld.com.
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