Double Click on Field Name - Restore Customize Field Functionality!

[Paul_Warren1]

Hello Airtable, Please, please please reverse this change!

Double-clicking on the field name now only modifies the name of the field. It is a pain to have to right-click to access this menu. I don’t want to be overdramatic and claim this will totally ruin Airtable, but it’s much less efficient than the old method.

I also noticed that when creating a new field, the field type is now the first dialog. Then we are prompted to put in a name. This is fine and I can get used to the new workflow. I understand that this reduces the number of times I use “Tab” to move between dialog boxes.

I love Airtable and hope it continues to make progress! Just not the progress I don’t like :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

[Zoe_Bridges]

Thank you @kuovonne for the thoughtful suggestions around improved field ordering, categorization, and description location.

We will continue to consider feedback surfaced in the community forum for this experiment and future product updates. We appreciate everyone’s feedback and continued support of Airtable.

[kuovonne]

@Zoe_Bridges Thank you for letting us know that Airtable is still monitoring this thread and considering future product updates.

Here is a pie-in-the-sky list of ideas related to setting up and customizing fields.

I would like to see all of the following in a single field customization screen, possibly on different tabs, with consistent names across tabs for all field types. Note that some of these features do not exist yet.

• the name of the field
• the field type
• formatting options
• the field description
• a default value for the field
• possible values (for manually entered fields, e.g. minimum & maximum values)
• computation settings for computed fields
• an icon to show in the user interface next to the field name

Formatting options would include anything that affects the display of the value but not how the value is stored internally. Examples of current formatting options include the currency unit in currency fields, the time format in time fields, format of duration fields, and the icon in rating fields. For date/time fields, the option to show local time versus gmt time would should also go under a “formatting” tab to make it more clear to users that choosing local time only affects how the time is displayed, and not how it is stored.

Rules for possible values already exist in a limited sense. Rating fields have a maximum value. You can limit linked record fields to a single value. Number fields can exclude negative numbers. You can limit new linked records to a view. People have been asking for more data validation rules, especially ranges for number fields. People also want to prevent creation of new possible values in single select and multi-select fields.

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Many of Airtable’s field types are more about the appearance of a value versus how the value is actually stored. For example, a currency field is basically a number field with a currency symbol. A percent field is a number field with a shifted decimal place and a percent symbol. A duration field is a number field with fancy display options. An email field is basically a single line text field with a different icon in the field column heading. You can reduce the number of field types and shift these appearance issues to formatting options.

(I am treading close to Bill’s idea of having formulas applied to any field type, but I don’t want to go there right now.)

[Bill_French]

kuovonne:

Here is a pie-in-the-sky list of ideas related to setting up and customizing fields.

Impressive and very thoughtful.

Airtable should employ you as a product requirements manager. Seriously; they should do this right now. Even on a contractual basis - this is precisely the level of consideration and skill to assess the best interests of users that is deparately needed inside their organization.

kuovonne:

a pie-in-the-sky list of ideas

I disagree; you are being too modest. :winking_face: This is a list of key requirements to advance the usability while softening the margins between everyday users and the deeper technical aspects of a database tool.

[Paul_Warren1]

kuovonne:

Formatting options would include anything that affects the display of the value but not how the value is stored internally. Examples of current formatting options include the currency unit in currency fields, the time format in time fields, format of duration fields, and the icon in rating fields. For date/time fields, the option to show local time versus gmt time would should also go under a “formatting” tab to make it more clear to users that choosing local time only affects how the time is displayed, and not how it is stored.

Rules for possible values already exist in a limited sense. Rating fields have a maximum value. You can limit linked record fields to a single value. Number fields can exclude negative numbers. You can limit new linked records to a view. People have been asking for more data validation rules, especially ranges for number fields. People also want to prevent creation of new possible values in single select and multi-select fields.

Honestly, @Zoe_Bridges, these changes would be incredible. I never realized how overwhelming all the fields were until @kuovonne’s suggestions. i have absolutely felt confused while trying to understand the purpose of each field type. Why is there an email field type?? I just accepted I was missing something :stuck_out_tongue:

I hope Airtable implements at least the suggestion to condense similar fields into option menus. That would be huge!

[ScottWorld]

Bill.French:

Airtable should employ you as a product requirements manager. Seriously; they should do this right now.

Totally. I can say with 100% certainty that there is no single individual at Airtable with the skills + the overall product knowledge that @kuovonne has. This is the sort of person that Airtable is sorely lacking right now.

We also have to remember that most of the hires at Airtable have no prior database experience, which makes for a subpar product. People like @kuovonne, @Bill.French, and myself come from DECADES of database experience with high-end database systems.

[kuovonne]

ScottWorld:

Totally. I can say with 100% certainty that there is no single individual at Airtable with the skills + the overall product knowledge
…

We also have to remember that most of the hires at Airtable have no prior database experience,

Thank you for the kind words, but I’m surprised at these comments and I’m curious how you came to these conclusions. There are many very knowledgeable people at Airtable. They just don’t tend to post on these forums very much. As for prior database experience of new hires, I don’t see how you could know statistics on this without being part of Airtable’s HR.

[ScottWorld]

@kuovonne

I’m also a psychic! :man_with_turban: ‍♂ :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I’ve had some private conversations with folks at Airtable. My personal takeaway — and this is just my own personal interpretation of what I’ve learned — is that the engineers may indeed have prior experience, but the technical "barrier to entry“ to get hired on the support team or in other non-engineering roles is very low.

But YOU are the hero we need! :star_struck: :partying_face:

[andywingrave]

4 months gone and Airtable is at it again. I have no idea why they keep messing with this - Of all the features of the app…This was maybe the lowest priority to be changed. (It didn’t need changed at all)

I have grown to really dislike Airtable’s cavalier approach to messing with process critical pieces of a user flow.

I’ve yet again been pushed a set up that, (yet again), tries to force me to choose field type upon creating a field.

I honestly only have rage in me right now, as I type - and rage + forums tends not to end well for anyone… But I do honestly hope the UX designer of this feature, packs in their experiments, changes field creation back to how it was in August 2020, and actually goes to work on something useful. Because this is infuriating!

Here’s what’s wrong with it… On the off chance that UX team is interested :rage: :rage: :rage:

1. This area is for re-setting my mouse. …Not for creating a new column! When I want a new column! , I purposefully click ‘+’
   
2. Why do I need to explain that this should be a “Create Field” button and not a cancel button. :rage: :rage: :rage: Why on earth are you making it more difficult for me to create a field? This is the most outrageous and arrogant UX decision I’ve ever encountered. I’ve just clicked create a field - AND YOU LITERALLY HIDE THE BUTTON THAT ALLOWS ME TO DO THAT!!! Is your assumption that I did this by accident? Are you that insecure about your UX that you assume I don’t just actually want to create a field
3. Why does “Enter” create a field here, but “Command + Enter” does nothing. Just using general UX conventions…“Command+Enter” should create the field, and “Enter” should take the user to the next stage in the menu (if Enter, really needs to do anything at all)

I’m so, sorry for the rage, but I am just so exhausted with this. I spend 80% of my day in Airtable, and as a hugfe champion of your software, I feel alienated and ignored while you experiment with the wrong things. There are a million things you can go tinker with…Stop messing with the one thing that did not need changed… Please :pray:

[Justin_Barrett]

andywingrave:

I’ve yet again been pushed a set up that, (yet again), tries to force me to choose field type upon creating a field.

I’m confused. Aside from the period of time when the tweak that prompted this thread was active for select users (not me, thankfully), choosing a field type upon field creation has been part of the UI ever since I started using Airtable nearly two years ago. Are you suggesting that there should be a default type, that creating a new field should instantly add a field using that default type, and that the user would choose another type if they don’t want the default? Or does your comment above contain a typo?

That aside, I think you used just the right amount of red in your post (emojis included) because that space to the right of the last field no longer acts as a trigger area for creating a new field. It was the way you describe earlier today, but I just checked, and it’s gone now.

[ScottWorld]

andywingrave:

I’m so, sorry for the rage, but I am just so exhausted with this. I spend 80% of my day in Airtable, and as a hugfe champion of your software, I feel alienated and ignored while you experiment with the wrong things. There are a million things you can go tinker with…Stop messing with the one thing that did not need changed… Please :pray:

I totally agree with you. This is very disappointing, and very rage-inducing.

Unfortunately, this is yet another one of those crazy beta tests where Airtable has rolled out this “new feature” to some workspaces, but not all workspaces.

Once again, the Airtable engineers are tweaking things that don’t need to be tweaked, while ignoring the fixes that need to be fixed.

And now, they have suddenly come to the crazy conclusion that users of Airtable are constantly wanting to create new fields! They apparently think that all day long we’re just creating new fields in Airtable, and we don’t want to do anything else in Airtable.

Think about that for a moment — the Airtable engineers apparently sat around and said, “what can we possibly do to make people accidentally create new fields all day long as they’re using our product?”

And what was their brilliant solution?

Their brilliant solution was to make the ENTIRE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE ENTIRE SCREEN CLICKABLE — so now, whenever somebody is trying to “reset their mouse” (as @andywingrave said above) or simply click out of a record, now there are brand new fields being created instead.

Is there a lack of sanity at Airtable, @Jason? @Adam_Minich? @Linjie_Ding? @Taylor_Savage? @Zoe_Bridges? As @andywingrave mentioned, It’s truly getting exhausting at this point.

Why do you insist on making us fight your product every day? How do you expect us to be evangelists of your product if you keep doing these sorts of things to us? You refuse to have any sort of a dialogue with us, yet you continually tweak your product in destructive ways — things that have been working 100% perfectly fine. Why do you show such disregard for us?

Everybody who chimed in on this thread THOUGHT that this entire thread was closed & resolved by now, but nope. They’re still tweaking things to make things worse.

And — get this — guess what else they have destroyed? The “view” menu again. Remember how we all finally got Airtable to fix the “view” menu back in Fall 2020? Remember how we all thought that the discussion on the “View” menu was closed & resolved?

NOPE. Airtable had to go back and ruin it again.

Are you ready for this?

Now, whenever you hover over the name of your current View with your mouse, you’re supposed to get that beautiful “hovering” side panel. I call it the “hover view menu”.

But guess what they’ve done? Unlike every other button in all of Airtable, they’ve made this “hover view menu” pay attention to WHICH DIRECTION YOUR MOUSE IS MOVING IN.

What this means is that you can ONLY TRIGGER THE HOVER VIEW MENU if you APPROACH THE MENU FROM UNDERNEATH. If you approach the “hover view menu” from any other direction, it doesn’t trigger. (Take your mouse and approach the name of your current view. It will only trigger if you approach it from underneath.)

My clients and myself are so incredibly agitated by this ridiculous decision which makes no sense whatsoever. I’m in the middle of a busy workday now, but I will make a video of this and create a separate post on this issue soon.

Is there ANYBODY at Airtable who cares about our user experience? ANYBODY who wants to create dialogue or discussion with us? Is there any hope on the horizon that you WANT to engage with your best evangelists on the planet? The people who are your biggest cheerleaders everyday?