Product update: Formula editor improvements

[Jordan_Scott1]

Hi everyone -

As you may have noticed yesterday, we’re introducing new visual cues and functionality to help users successfully read, create, and troubleshoot formulas directly in Airtable.

Some of these new formula editor capabilities include:

• Colorful syntax highlighting
• Parenthesis matching
• Multiline editing with the ability to fold multiline formulas
• Surface error when there are unbalanced parenthesis
• Surface error when there are blank space or miscellaneous characters between a function name and the opening parenthesis

Formulas are complex and hard to compose, especially when they contain more than one function. We hope that these updates make it easier for you to troubleshoot your formulas and lead to fewer errors. You should see these changes reflected in Airtable today, but we can’t wait to hear what you think!

Additional resources:

• Support documentation: Formula editor updates

[Jordan_Scott1]

Thanks for this @ScottWorld - passed along to the team!

[ScottWorld]

Hi @Jordan_Scott1,

I created this video for Sara in tech support — this could be very helpful for your team:

[Chris_Lu]

@Jordan_Scott1 I think there might be a bug in this that I don’t see reported above. The attached screenshot shows a working multiline formula, but which flags 5 ‘Missing opening parenthesis’ errors. If I flatten this formula into a single line, the errors disappear. Is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong?

The formula is:

IF(
  OR(
    IS_AFTER({Assets Ingested Date},{Last Attempted Delivery to KDP})=1,
    {KDP Distribution Status}="FAIL",
    AND({Assets Ingested Date}!="",{Last Attempted Delivery to KDP}="")
    ),
    "TRUE",
    "FALSE"
)

[kuovonne]

Chris_Lu:

I think there might be a bug in this that I don’t see reported above

I think this is the same type of bug that I reported seeing.

If the formula saves and produces the correct result, ignore the wavy red underlines.

[Chris_Lu]

Thanks very much @kuovonne

[kuovonne]

I now see a resize drag handle for the formula editor. I can now see 16 lines at a time with over 100 characters per line. The editor doesn’t auto-size correctly yet, but this is a vast improvement.

:confetti_ball:
Thank you Airtable!

I am still seeing red wavy underlines where they don’t belong.
Is the formula editor based on Monaco, the same as the Scripting editor? Can you fix the grammar file it uses for Airtable formulas?

[Jordan_Scott1]

Thanks so much, Scott - this has been submitted to the team!

[Karlstens]

I spent some time fighting the new formula editor. It works, but… not as smoothly as I’d hoped. I think perhaps instead of re-inventing the wheel, just take lead from apps like Notepad++ that make editing text easy with zero fuss.

[kuovonne]

I still fight the formula editor on occasion. But I think that Airtable is on the right track with improving the formula editor. The formula editor has some nice features that we cannot get elsewhere:

• autocomplete for field and formula names
• syntax checking
• integrated documentation for formula field parameters
• it’s right there

The previous version of the formula editor had the autocomplete and integrated documentation. It didn’t have multi-line support and a wider line length.

Most of the current issues with the formula editor relate to

• using the keyboard for moving the cursor, versus picking an autocomplete choice, versus controlling indent level
• what text to add/remove when using autocomplete
• incorrect syntax checking

Once those issue are cleared up, I think that the formula editor is going to be awesome.

[ScottWorld]

kuovonne:

I now see a resize drag handle for the formula editor. I can now see 16 lines at a time with over 100 characters per line. The editor doesn’t auto-size correctly yet, but this is a vast improvement.

@Jordan_Scott1 It seems like this resize drag handle only shows up in Chrome, but it doesn’t exist in Safari. Can the team bring this to Safari as well? I do most of my Airtable work in Safari.