Yes: Notepad++ — but I expect any editor with automatic indentation and paren matching would do.
I also have Np++ set for a four-character tab step and to replace tabs with spaces; this latter setting allows me to copy-and-paste indented code into Airtable formula and aggregation function configurations and have it maintain indentation if (when) I want to copy/paste it back to Np++ from Airtable.
The functionality I lose by not being able to select existing fields or functions is far more than outweighed by the assistance it provides when debugging formulas. (Actually, Np++'s standard autocomplete feature helps obviate much of the loss; if the full name of the field or function already exists somewhere on the currently active Np++ tab, the program pops up an unobtrusive selection box as soon as the first character matches.)
Evidently, it’s not on this PC, but I recently noticed at some point I had started to create a user-defined language file for Airtable. (What I was trying to achieve, I don’t know; I simply remember seeing an ‘Airtable’ option at the bottom of the ‘Language’ menu.) I suspect I initially hoped to create an online function reference to substitute for the one built into the Airtable editor but stopped once I realized Np++ wouldn’t support such a thing.
In practice I’ll often pop back over to the Airtable window and enter the first few characters of the function I want to look up into the formula configurator; once I’ve refreshed my memory, i return to Np++. Since I always replace everything in the configuration window with whatever I’ve just finished offline, I don’t care if Airtable’s copy of the old formula becomes garbled.[1]
Let me close with a formula I recently admitted in public to having written; it’s from a demo base I created as part of a ‘Show and Tell’ post on ‘pretty-print’ routines. While part of me still recoils from the thought of actually having done this on purpose, the code does work as intended, and I’ve yet to find any way substantially to improve it:
IF(
StringValue,
IF(
LEFT(StringValue,1)='-',
'-',
''
)&
'$'&
IF(
FIND(
'.',
SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),'-','')
)=1,
'0',
''
)&
IF(
MOD(
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue),
FIND('.',SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))-1,
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))
),
3)=0,
IF(
FIND('.',SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))!=1,
LEFT(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''),3),
''
),
LEFT(
SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''),
MOD(
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue),
FIND('.',SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))-1,
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))
),
3)
)
)&
IF(
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))>IF(FIND('.',SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-','')),6,3),
','&
MID(
SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''),
IF(
MOD(
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue),
FIND('.',SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))-1,
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))
),
3
)=0,
4,
MOD(
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue),
FIND('.',SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))-1,
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))
),
3
)+1
),
3
),
''
)&
IF(
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue),
FIND('.',SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-','')),
LEN(
SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-','')
)
)>
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue),
9,
6
),
','&
MID(
SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''),
IF(
MOD(
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue),
FIND('.',SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))-1,
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))
),
3
)=0,
7,
MOD(
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue),
FIND('.',SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))-1,
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(StringValue,'$',''),',',''),'-',''))
),
3
)+4
),
3
),
''
)&
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue),
IF(
FIND('.',StringValue)<(LEN(StringValue)-2),
'.'&
ROUND(
VALUE(
'.'&RIGHT(
StringValue,
LEN(StringValue)-FIND('.',StringValue)
)
)*100,
0
),
RIGHT(StringValue,3)
),
'.00'
)
)
(Be sure to scroll the inner window, too; you don’t want to miss a line of such elegant code…)
Putting aside for the moment the possibility a ‘no’ answer might be a good thing, would it even be possible to develop such a formula using the standard Airtable editor — or, at least, to do so and still retain one’s sanity?
.__________
- My workflow goes something like this: Right-click field; select ‘Customize field type’; click into formula editor textbox;
Ctrl-A; Ctrl-C; mousedown to Np++ icon in taskbar and select; either (1) select Np++ tab to use or (2) click ‘New file’ icon; Ctrl-V; edit formula; Ctrl-A; Ctrl-C; mousedown to browser icon in taskbar and select; click into formula editor textbox; Ctrl-A; Ctrl-V; click ‘Save’ button; test. Rinse. Repeat.
Edit: I actually far surpassed the formula above as my example of what not to do when programming Airtable: I created an IF() statement with 468 branches and extremely long options, so the total length of the formula exceeded 34,000 characters. It failed, giving me #ERROR no matter what I tried. Finally discovered Airtable seems to have a hard limit of 353 branches per formula. This is something else I’d never have found — nor never attempted, for that matter — without Notepad++.
