@Kristofer_Giltvedt_S,
I’m not completely versed in the way that 3rd-party developers are able to establish a relationship with Airtable to create and make available custom blocks. However, the Embed block does provide a way to integrate web apps into a block container a framed service. I consider this a proxy-block, not an actual block in the true sense of the definition.
As far as I can see, there are two ways to create custom proxy-blocks:
- If you are able to build web apps that provide the back-end services needed to perform integrations directly with Airtable data stores, this is one way to get there.
- If you use Airtable.js (the JavaScript SDK) you can probably create proxy blocks that use the Embed block to perform actions all from the client (i.e., the web app framed into the Embed block.
I have created custom blocks using method #1 where a web UI provides a cross-base unified search engine that calls into a back-end service that has indexed all bases into ElasticSearch. I have not tried the approach using the JavaScript SDK.
This is a good opportunity to lobby Airtable developers to consider opening the blocks framework to allow anyone to create and deploy custom blocks that install into Airtable seamlessly. It would be a wise move if they allowed this because no company can ever match the energy and innovation of a market of passionate users who want to make Airtable better.
