Search box on mobile?

[Liceo_Statale_D]

Is it possible to make a search box appear also in the “grid view” on mobile (as happens in the desktop version)?

[M_k]

Hi @Liceo_Statale_De_San

Yes, the search option is available for both the iPod Touch (similar to the iPhone, except no phone option) and the iPad. This is for non embedded bases.

Take a look at this thread, you might find something something usefull:

Any workaround for filter, group, and search on an embedded view in a mobile device? Views

That’s great to hear! :slight_smile:

Hope this helps.

Mary

Here are screenshots of both iPod Touch and iPad.

[ScottWorld]

Yes, as @M_k mentioned, and for those reading along at home: @Liceo_Statale_De_San is referring to embedding an Airtable view within another website on a mobile device using a mobile web browser.

For some inexplicable & strange reason, Airtable has completely overlooked including a toolbar with the mobile version of their embedded views.

What this means is that you end up with no searching, no sorting, and no grouping functionality in an embedded view on a mobile device. This makes absolutely ZERO sense, since the majority of Internet traffic comes from mobile devices.

Be sure to send a support request to support@airtable.com to request that they add this feature.

If you decide to stick with Airtable, there are only 2 workarounds for this issue:

1. If you still want to use Airtable's embedded views, you can force them to work properly by manually requesting the desktop version of the website from your mobile web browser. I don’t know how to do this on all mobile web browsers, but on Safari for iOS, you can click on the little “aA” icon on the lefthand side of Safari’s toolbar, and choose “Request Desktop Website”.

2. The best & more bulletproof solution to this problem would be to use an external 3rd-party Airtable portal to display your Airtable data instead. All external portals will give you the ability to include some sort of a toolbar on mobile devices. Some external Airtable portals are: Softr, Glide, Noloco, JetAdmin, and Pory.

However, your 3rd option might be the best one, which is to leave Airtable for a more powerful & capable database which was designed from the ground up to be fully mobile-friendly. i would highly recommend FileMaker, which is the database program that I specialized in for 30 years. If you need a referral to some of the top FileMaker developers in the country, reach out to me through my Airtable & FileMaker consulting website.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

[InfoWrangler]

Thank you @ScottWorld for summing up this problem so succinctly!

The users I'm trying to set this up for don't have the time (or, frankly, the tech savvy) to request the desktop site version of a page every time they need to open it up.

I need them to be able to push an icon on their home screen, which opens up a search bar, where they can enter in a number found in one field that brings up a particular view of the entire record from a particular table.

So far, I'm drawing blanks.

[Ted_Beelen]

I'm also desperately waiting for this feature! I have built a digital product catalogue with >1500 records that needs filtering to 'find' the right product. The interface uses shared Airtable views embedded into a website. It works perfect on larger screens and even the standard responsive interface is perfect, but the absence of the search & filter toolbar on mobile devices makes it almost unworkable on mobile devices. 

Since we're using a lot of columns in the desktop overview, forcing a mobile phone to desktop view is not convenient. It does not make sense to me that this search & filter toolbar is not available for mobile phones...

Any development in this would be greatly appreciated!!!

[ScottWorld]

Yeah, it’s a major drawback to Airtable.

Sadly, I had 2 clients leave Airtable over this issue. They switched to FileMaker, which is the database language that I specialized in for 30 years. (If you need a referral to a great FileMaker developer, just reach out to me through my Airtable & FileMaker consulting website.)

FileMaker is one the most powerful databases on the planet, and it is infinitely more powerful & customizable than Airtable.

If you decide to stick with Airtable, the only way to workaround this problem is to use an external interface/portal app for Airtable, all of which offer mobile friendly views that can be embedded.

A few of the leading customer portals are Noloco, JetAdmin, Softr, Pory, and Glide.

p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld