Question about filters

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1

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on this wonderful community.
My question is about the filters. I have some parameters called categories that I would like to be used for the filtering of the results of my list block. Unfortunately some of these names are too long and they only show the first caracters of these strings.
Have you encountered the same issue and did you find a way to go around it?

Thanks in advance and happy to be part of this community!

2

Hi Shaineze,

Obvious solution but still worth mentioning :

  • Sizing down the names of the categories?

A bit less obvious

  • Instead of making it a dropdown filter, have you tried the tag filter or vice versa?
  • Or make a form where you can select the filters and search (modals etc have much more space for dropdowns) and when submit you open up the list but with added params for filtering see here (or do this with actual buttons in a CTA block.

Hope any of these work for you

3

Dear Marc,

The categories names are fixed and independent from me. I have to work with the suggested options so unfortunately this is not possible.

The tag filter is not possible (though that would have been great) because I have more than 30 categories and you don’t wanna see them at all times available.

The third option seems much more viable though I am not sure how to implement this. Do you have an example to share?

4

Hey Shaineze,

Not nessecarely an example but here is a logic path you can follow (this is no-code, @matthieu_chateau is there an easier way with code snippet?)

If you have that many filter options, making seperate Call To Action buttons for each is not going to help you. Lets explore the option with a form.

I am going to assume your user is logged in for this example and you use airtable as your datasource.

  • Go to make.com and create an account. Then a new scenario, add a module > webhook. Create a webhook and copy it.
  • add a new page called “submit” in SOFTR .
  • Add a form block on the page where your search starts, data source set to : make and add the custom webhook adress.
  • add in airtable a formula column called RecordID in your Users table (its important you have this synced with SOFTR). The formula is: RECORD_ID()
  • Also add in airtable a URL column called Filtered URL
  • In the Form block in SOFTR create 2 fields, one hidden field with > record id : logged in user > RecordID, the other field is a Dropdown field. You will have to manually type in all options (they are case sensitive). Keep it single select for this example.
  • On submit action is open page > the newly made page called: submit.
  • In the submit SOFTR page add in a conditional filter in the source tab: If email is logged in user > email
  • Remove all fields on the list details but add only an action button: Open URL. You can then select open URL field > Filtered URL. The action button will seem out of place, so maybe add some static blocks to make this either a confirmation page or maybe an upselling opportunity.
  • In make.com create a scenario with the following modules :
    Receive webhook module (with previous webhook) → Airtable Update Record (RecordID = RecordID that is send through the webhook, FilteredURL = https://yoururl.com/yourlistpage? filter-by-fieldName=fieldValue

make sure that the fieldValue is the variable of the key-value pair that is send to make. Replace the URL with your own domain and the filter-by-fieldName is i think in your case :“Categories” ? It is a big workaround and there is a case to be made that in terms of user experience having to click 2 buttons to filter a list isn’t the best, but this is how I would do it in a no-code way.

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5

Thanks Marc for the mention!

This problem is more of a Softr bug, IMO, and it has to be listed as a bug report.

@Viktoria @Jjenglert => this is a problem I saw for other people. I think this is happening only for the new (beta) blocks. There is a need for a fix so that if the text of a filter is too long there should be a line break.

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6

Glad I tagged you mate! Didn’t even realise it could have been a bug
 thought this was a feature as the saying goes.

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7

@matthieu_chateau This is actually a very useful information. Because if it’s linked to beta feature, I will change the block type that I am using to be able to use this in an easy way without having to connect to Make and involve an external tool again.

@Workflowheroes_Marc thank you very much for taking the time to take me through the whole process!

2 Likes
8

Hi,

@matthieu_chateau I notice another bug. I have used a not ‘beta block’ called ‘List with vertical cards and description’ to do the above. I notice that when I turn off the sync with data, the line break doesn’t show and instead I face the same issue as with the beta block! :cry:
The problem was that I need to not sync this data with the source in airtable because I need to filter some of this data out. Any solution?

9

No solution unfortunately, though I expect Softr engineering team to solve this as fast as possible (This is the type of small bugs that make an app unusable :man_shrugging:)

1 Like
10

:pray:

Yes, the small disturbing bugs. Thanks for answering though!

11

@Shaineze can you please share a picture so I get an idea what’s wrong with long filter values ?

12

While waiting for Shaineze’s answer, here are three screenshots with a list details block (beta), a grid block (beta) and a list block (beta)

Capture d’écran 2024-08-20 205447
Capture d’écran 2024-08-20 2054471147×326 20.6 KB





Capture d’écran 2024-08-20 205509
Capture d’écran 2024-08-20 2055091726×761 36.8 KB





Capture d’écran 2024-08-20 205532
Capture d’écran 2024-08-20 2055321666×712 43.3 KB

13

@matthieu_chateau what you shared is pretty long one and I guess for tags should be fine to limit ? I thought we indeed have a bug and show only few chars


14

The problem by limiting the size of tags is that companies need to adapt their tags accordingly
 And they are not willing to do this / don’t understand why they should do it. Softr should adapt to the business operations - what’s already existing, not the opposite.

Whether it is graphically better or not, when businesses comes to Softr they come for usability at first. These are small details that make decision-makers nervous when building a Softr app and will result to two thoughts:

  • Softr is limited, we will see next year if we can move from it.
  • Okay for now, there is no time to check another no-code builder, but I will have to explain this to my team = more time spent.

Changing a tag used by teams for months just because Softr forces it, that’s not the best deal to offer. For them changing tags is not something they thought they would have to think of (obviously).

Just let the apps built in Softr be not as pretty as it could be => usability first - adaptation to existing operations first.

This was not the case before anyway, with old blocks there is no such size limitation for tags.

This is exactly the same for filters by the way, that are truncated if too long. Problematic again.

1 Like
15

@matthieu_chateau fair point, though people use tools daily and most if not all really limit otherwise every tool will look like a monster :smiley: the UI should not just follow the data but rather find a compromise between good looking and functional.

This being said, we will discuss it internally

16

Additionally, what also backfires is that we used to hear builder X outputs better UI and Softr UI is ugly :smiley:

I guess hard to find good balance :smiley:

17

image
image1968×486 29.9 KB

@artur this is what I mean.
I have the following tag in airtable but it doesn’t render them correctly in Softr.
This behavior is shown not only for beta blocks but also for ‘old’ ones.

image
image681×990 54.7 KB

18

Okay these filters are a bit more wordy than anticipated. In my previous response you will have to encodeURL the fieldvalue , urls dont handle spaces and periods. :slight_smile:

19

Giving the choice would be the best and would still meet the goal to find a good balance.
Just like the “wrap tags” option with a switch button there could be an “Allow Line break” switch button for tags.
Again, for tags and filters this is problematic as it is about data readability for end users.

20

Just following up to let you all know that we’ve discussed this internally, and are working on preparing a solution that fits with our design framework. Will update when we have more information.

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