Views

A table can be shown in ten ways. A view copies no data, and grants no more permission than the table itself.

Note

These views are ways of showing one table. A SQL view is something else: a real PostgreSQL view, written in SQL over the base’s tables, and filed among them in the sidebar.

View	What it shows	What it needs
Grid	rows, filtered, sorted, grouped, with chosen columns	—
Kanban	cards in columns	a single select
Calendar	rows on their date, by month or by week	a date field
Timeline	bars between two dates, and their dependencies	a start date
Gallery	cards, with a cover image	—
List	one line per row, in collapsible groups	—
Map	each row placed at its location	an address, or a latitude and longitude
Form	a page of questions to create a row	—
Survey	the same questions, one per screen	—
Quiz	scored questions, one per screen, and the score at the end	—

The view selector

It sits to the left of “Filter”. “All rows” is the table’s grid, which nobody saved and nobody can delete; then come the collaborative views, in the order chosen by whoever builds the base, and then My views. At the bottom, Create a view sorts the ten kinds into two families: those that show rows and those that collect answers (form, survey, quiz).

• A collaborative view is seen by everyone. Creating, configuring, renaming, reordering or deleting one requires the Manage level. It can be locked: a padlock says so, and nobody can change it until they unlock it.
• A personal view is seen only by you, and only requires being able to read the table. Create personal view, or Save as view after filtering and sorting: everyone keeps their own ways of reading, without changing anything for the others. Duplicate on a collaborative view makes a personal copy of it.

The toolbar

Above the grid, in this order:

• Filter combines conditions per field;
• Columns chooses what is shown — the system columns are set apart, under “System information”;
• Group sorts rows by a single-value field — single select, relation, person, date, number, text, checkbox… — into collapsible groups, each with its count across the whole filter;
• Colors colors the rows by a single select, or by rules — a filter and a color, twenty at most — as a stripe, a background, or both;
• Row height: short, medium, tall, extra tall;
• Search…, on the right, searches all columns as you type; Esc clears the search. It also works for the kanban, calendar, timeline, gallery and list, and is never saved in the view.

Under each column, a Summary computed over all the rows of the filter, not just the page: filled, empty, unique values, sum, average, minimum, maximum, checked boxes.

Kanban, calendar, timeline

• The kanban sorts cards by a single select; dragging a card updates the row, and a “+” at the top of a column creates a row that already has that choice. Each card shows a title, a cover image, the chosen fields, and a description that cites the row’s values — “Delivery scheduled for {{Date}} for {{Client}}” —, written in the view settings with the Insert field button.
• The calendar places each row on its date, with an optional end date; dragging a row from one day to another moves it.
• The timeline draws bars between a start date and an end date, grouped by a single select or a relation. With the Depends on setting — a relation from the table to itself — an arrow links each task to the ones it depends on, in red when it goes back in time.

Gallery and list

• The gallery shows cards: a cover image (cropped or whole), a size (small, medium, large cards), a color by single select.
• The list shows one line per row, grouped by a single select, a relation or a person.

In the kanban, the gallery and the list, cards and rows can be ordered by hand by dragging them — up to 5,000; a chosen sort takes precedence over this order.

Map

The map places each row at its location, based on:

• an address — a short text, preferably in the Address format (see Tables and fields): “12 rue des Lilas, Lyon”;
• or a latitude and a longitude, two number fields, placed as they are.

A pin takes the color of a single select, shows the row’s title on hover, and opens its row details on click. The map follows the view’s filter and sort, up to 2,000 rows.

An address is located once and for all by the instance’s geocoding service — OpenStreetMap’s by default —, at the pace it imposes: on a fresh map, pins appear as the responses come in, about one a second, then right away the following times. A badge counts the rows placed, the addresses still to be located and the ones that could not be: an address that cannot be found is to be made more precise (city, postal code), never dropped silently.

What leaves your server

The text of addresses goes to the geocoding service, and each reader’s browser loads the map background from the tile server. The instance’s operator can choose other services, or want none: see Environment variables.

Form and survey

You check the questions and put them in order; each has a title, a help text, an example answer, and can be made required. The form has its own title, its introduction, its button label and its thank-you message. It is filled in inside basedb, or shared through a link.

Nothing needs setting up to start: a new form asks what a person answers — not the status, the assigned person or the relations the team fills in afterwards, unless they are required —, wears its table’s color and a light theme, and each empty field shows a fitting example. Everything else can be changed whenever you like:

• Appearance: eight themes — Light, Soft, Dawn, Ocean, Forest, Night, Paper, Minimal —, an accent color, a font, a left or centered alignment;
• Prefill with today’s date: a date question arrives already holding the day — and the time, for a date and time — which the person keeps or changes;
• Ask only if…: a question is only asked if an earlier answer calls for it (“Sentiment is Negative”, “Rating is at most 2”). A hidden question is neither required nor sent;
• More options: the welcome and submit buttons, the numbers, the progress bar, moving automatically to the next question, the end message and an end button (“Back to site”), the confetti.

The survey fills the whole screen: a welcome screen that says how long it takes, then one question at a time, sliding in. Everything also works from the keyboard: Enter to continue, the letters A, B, C… for a choice, Y or N for yes or no, digits for a rating — a single choice moves on to the next question by itself. Sending it is celebrated: a checkmark draws itself, and confetti in the form’s colors.

Quiz

A quiz is a survey that counts points. Under each question, you give its right answer and what it is worth — 1 point if you say nothing, up to 100:

Question	Right answer
single select	one choice
multiple select	the choices to check, all of them and only them
checkbox	yes or no
number, rating	a number
date	a day
short text, email, URL	one or more accepted answers, separated by ; — ignoring case and accents

A question with no right answer — a first name, a comment — is asked without being scored. At least one scored question is required to create the quiz.

The Grading section sets the rest:

• Feedback: after each question — the answer is checked at once, in green, or in red with the right answer, and the score grows at the top of the screen —, at the end — the score, then the feedback —, or never — the score alone, the right answers stay secret;
• Pass threshold: a percentage of the points; the end screen then says “Passed!” or “Not this time…”;
• Save the score in: a number field of the table, which receives the score of each response. Sort the grid on it: that is the leaderboard. A field named “Score”, “Points” or “Result” is chosen by default.

The end screen shows the score in a ring that fills up, the percentage, then, unless “never”, each scored question with the answer given and the right one. A question hidden by an earlier answer does not count toward the total.

Note

In the application, whoever can read the view can read its right answers. Through a shared link, they never leave the server: it is the one that checks and counts.

Sharing a view

A data view — grid, kanban, calendar, timeline, gallery, list — can be shared read-only through a link, embedded in another site, and a calendar becomes a calendar feed. See Shared views.

What the reader does not see

A view is reprojected for its reader: a field hidden from them disappears from the columns, the cards and the questions. A view whose filter cites a hidden field is not shown at all: shown without its filter, it would show more than it was made to show.