have more sophisticated expand/collapse functions on a right click (expand all below, collapse all below, expand all at this level, collapse all at this level)
More width to fill in fields that are currently narrower than the space they occupy (maybe this is fixed in v4 but I’m still a Luddite on 3.9.9)
Search function
Option to copy Set Values where the name is not changed to name_copy.
Inserted action appearing where you asked for it and not 1 step below, which could be miles lower down the page. (Maybe fixed in 4.0?)
multi-action selection with cut / copy / paste, and ability to paste both within the current action and to other actions
A formal “Copy SA to Library Action” function.
Better correlation of console error messages to the lines in my server action that created them
One-click creation of a Set Value which does a toNumber() on parameter or database read for faster creation of maths based actions.
And less important for me now, but more important for Wappler in general, a true expression editor rather than data binding window. It would mean I could use the menus more often and Teodor would be able to stop asking me why I type expressions rather than using the menus
There are some good suggestions on this list. I expect some would be quite straightforward to implement and others very difficult.
An option to copy/paste from one server action to another would probably be difficult or impossible to implement. If you copy a block of code between PHP scripts for example, you won’t necessarily expect it simply to ‘work’ - it will depend on a number of factors - but it’s neverthelss a very useful thing to be able to do, of course. Having copied the code, you can edit it to get it to work. This would be difficult using a visual UI, but of course we can already do this in Wappler without using the UI.
One general thing I would add to your list, is more keyboard shortcuts - eg to duplicate lines and add comments, and perhaps copy/paste (within the same server action).
Unfortunately the space issue you mention hasn’t been addressed in v4. At times it’s hardly possible to edit expressions without using an external text editor.
I would prefer a 'filter' function. Rather than show results from a search, just hide what doesn't match the filter criteria. It might be this is what you had in mind but I'm just clarify the difference between search and filter (as I understand it anyway).
This is not really a web server action as such, but what would really help my productivity would be a way to open multiple server actions and view them simultaneously side by side, I thought the tabs thing would help, but you can still only see one tab at a time, and you cant run 2 instances of Wappler simultaneously, so the only way i can currently do this is to use a second computer and open a second copy of Wappler on it, then open my old project to find a server action i want to see how i did a particular step, and replicate the particular parts i want.
I would love a mini server action reader tool as a secondary app, and all it needs to be able to do is view server actions without editing or anything fancy.
Great news, @Teodor mentioned that would do it, but then when Tabs came along I actually thought that was it. But if split tabs is still coming then yes, issue half solved for sure.
The nice thing about a separate little server action viewer is it would help when im thinking about an action i need i know i did something similar on a totally different project a year ago, i can open it and view it side by side with my new project open, unless split tabs can do multi project split as well?
Yep, I completely agree with that. I’m frequently having to switch projects to see how I did something last time so having a way to view them would be fantastic.
I use a great little utility called Stickies, which enables me to grab a selection of the screen and display it instantly, where it remains on top. I think there are a number of similar programs with this name, including one for Mac, but this is the only one I've found to work well for this. It takes about 2 seconds to hit a keyboard shortcut and draw a rectangle round your selection - that's it.
Any screen capture utility could do this, but in most cases it would be too fiddly and the capture window would get in the way (eg with Snagit, which I use for most other purposes).
Looks like a good option, thanks @TomD, will find something similar.
In dumb dude thinking I imagine the little extra app I am suggesting to be a simple thing for Wappler to add as I am assuming because its only read and not edit, that they just copy the module out and compile a mini app, however as I say thats in my little head, while in reality it is probably far far more complex than that.
I do a similar thing with preview. Take a screenshot of a drawn area and then open that up in preview. Isn’t always on top but I show it on another monitor.
I expect there might well be native Wappler options available at some point - eg with split screen or even an option for opening multiple projects (both have been mentioned I think).
However, in the meantime this simple solution is often all I need - for this and all sorts of situations where I want to remember some details or compare names. Sometimes I quickly glance at a variable name to remember it, switch to another project and do a search perhaps - realising I havent’t in fact remembered the name (almost, but not quite). I’ll often use this little program to assist my personal faulty RAM.
For people with a separate desktop and laptop, you can take advantage of the Logitech Master mouse and Keyboard using their Flow tool. This basically allows you to move from one device to another, copy/paste etc. which also means being able to run Wappler on two separate devices and have two projects open at the same time. For Mac users, there is a new feature expected in Monterey (although this specific feature looks like it won’t be in the first release) called Universal Control. It essentially does the same thing across your Apple devices.
I use multiple macs at the moment and screen sharing, works well, just a pain replicating projects across macs and Wapplers, otherwise works well even with standard mouse, keyboard
The one thing this does show, is that there are many of us all running into the same thing and all making plans to work around it, in an ideal world we would all be AIs like Patrick and would never need to reference back, but sadly I am too fragmented and have Toms bad RAM too.
This is exactly my workflow and has been for well over a year. Initially I was like you, @psweb, but now I wouldn’t do it any other way. Creating a repo takes seconds and pulling from it on another computer is equally as fast.
Thanks Ken, that video after the docs was perfect, clear as mud now, I will be Gitting in a few moments, your video made it seem far less scary, appreciate it.
GIT
When you finish working on one computer, commit changes and push to remote.