Hi! I’m Lars, an engineer at Airtable. We’re excited to let you know about several new Interface Designer features launching today that make it easier and more intuitive to build powerful custom apps.
New Page Layouts
When creating a new interface page, you’ll now see several new layout options. These full-page layouts are based around a single visualization, offer streamlined configuration controls, and introduce powerful features for interface users.
Highlights of new functionality available in these layouts:
- End user filtering and sorting: Interface users can filter and sort by displayed fields to better understand the data presented.
- Filter Tabs and Dropdowns: Builders can define tabs to save common filter combinations such as “Needs review” or “My tasks.” Or, they can add dropdowns to highlight key fields and allow users to mix-and-match filter choices.
- Multiple Visualizations: Builders can enable multiple visualizations of the same data without needing to create additional elements or pages. Interface users are shown a dropdown to switch between visualizations.
- Action Buttons: Builders can allow record creation via customizable forms and add action buttons that link to other pages to continue a workflow.
For more information about creating and configuring these new layouts, take a look at this support article.
Record Detail Sidesheet
Detail views allow users to drill down into records to see more information than can be displayed in the primary visualization and take record-specific actions.
Starting today, record detail views can be configured to display in a sidesheet to the right of an existing interface page rather than replacing the entire screen. This offers a lighter-weight experience and helps users retain more context on the original list they were viewing.
Reusable Record Detail and Form Layouts
As apps grow to power more workflows, interface builders need the ability to show different field details and forms for different use cases. Before today, all record details for a given table shared the same layout.
Now, interface builders can reuse existing record detail and form layouts or create separate layouts from separate contexts for more customized experiences.
Default Values in Interface Forms
Last but certainly not least, we’ve added the ability to set default values for interface form fields. This helps interface builders guide creation flows and supports workflows where records are created from a filtered context.
For example, a task created within an “Assigned to me” filter will default to being assigned to the current viewer and the builder can specify “Not Started” as the default status.
More Features Coming Soon
We’re continuing to work on additional improvements such as allowing interface users to search through large lists of records, and giving builders quicker access to make schema and notification changes directly within Interface Designer.
We look forward to hearing what you think, please let us know any feedback or questions!
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