Aug 23, 2021 01:08 PM
Hello,
I am moving and want to give away some of my things. I have created a table listing those objects (name, description, PHOTO), and now want to create a Form where friends can pick what they want. I have created the Form with the dependent field, and selected the all the fields from the original table. But when I view the form, it only gives me the Name of the objects, and doesn’t show the photo. Is it possible to have a Form with a nice Gallery view?
(Alternatively, I had thought about creating a Gallery view and giving people a link to it, with the idea that they could edit each record and mark it as “requested”. But as far as I can tell, it’s not possible to give a link with EDIT privileges. I do not want to ask people to create an account)
I this doable? Suggestions? Or maybe I am approaching this in the wrong way?
Thanks much,
Aug 23, 2021 01:37 PM
Welcome to the community, @Agustin_Schapira! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes: Unfortunately there isn’t a way to get Airtable to display more than just a record name when choosing a linked record. There are third-party options that can do this—namely On2Air: Forms by @openside—but I’m not sure if the price tag for that solution matches what you’re looking for.
While you can’t create a shared view with edit privileges, you could use a workaround.
Create a new table named something like “Requests.” In this [Requests]
table, create fields and design a form layout so that people can request items using the form, including a link field pointing to your main table of items (I’ll refer to this as the {Item}
field going forward). Create a shared link for the form layout on this table and copy the shared link URL.
In your main table, add a button field labeled “Request”, and set it to open a URL. The base URL will be the URL for the shared form on your [Requests]
table. On the end of that URL, add the appropriate prefill text to prefill the {Item}
link field with the record ID of the item. The finished formula to build the URL should look something like this:
"https://airtable.com/shrxxxxxxxxxxxxxx?prefill_Item=" & RECORD_ID()
NOTE: If you use a different name for your link field other than {Item}
in your [Requests]
table, change prefill_Item
to prefill_YOURFIELDNAME
.
Clicking that link on any item will open the request form with that linked item already selected. The user then needs to fill out your other fields—name, phone, etc.—and submit the form. This will add a new entry to the [Requests]
table and, more importantly, create a reciprocal link in your main table for that item.
In the main table, create a new view—grid, gallery, whatever you prefer—to act as your main shared view for the items. In that view, add a filter to only show records where that incoming link field from the [Requests]
table is empty.
Here’s how the flow now works. Someone goes to your shared view and decides that they want a given item, so they click the “Request” button. That opens the form. They fill out their other info—making sure to not change the link to that requested item—and submit it. That makes a linked request record to the item. Because that item now has an incoming link, it’s filtered out of the main shared view and not available for others to see or request.
Aug 24, 2021 05:46 AM
Thanks, Justin. I was able to make it work just as you described it.
BTW, It’d be nice if one of the options after submitting a form were to close the tab (and therefore go back to the Gallery view). Also, the gallery view does not refresh itself right away, and so the requested item does not disappear. But that’s OK, I suppose --just suggestions.
Best,
Aug 24, 2021 08:40 AM
Airtable shared views are static—they don’t have a live connection to the original base—so implementing an auto-refresh would be difficult unless that were to change (and frankly I don’t see that happening, but it might). The auto-close of a form tab is a great idea, though. I recommend sending that to Airtable support directly, and possibly making a new thread (or looking for an existing thread) in the #show-and-tell:product-suggestions category.
Aug 24, 2021 11:54 AM
Good idea! Thanks :winking_face: