Side panel view for records

Feature Requests
1

Feature request: Side panel view for records

  • Right now, clicking on a collection’s record opens its detail page view.
  • I’d love to be able to stay at the high level (the collection view) while getting a side panel view for the record I just clicked on.

This can just be done using the “Split” view, but that is not sufficient because (1) it only works for collection pages, and (2) many of us rely on blank pages so that we can have multiple collections & elements exist on the same page. Hence the value of a side panel where you can click on any of your collections’ records and it’ll open to the right side.

There are a couple ways this could be done…

  1. First Option: The side panel view be added as a new view (in the same way that there’s a collection view, a base record view (the detail view), and the new record view. You would have the option to add to that a fourth view: the “side panel view.”
  2. Second Option: The side panel view is just a compressed version of the base record view (the detail view). This would be easier developmentally (I would imagine), though I think it would be far messier since side panels have much less screen real estate, and compression could get ugly.

That last sentence being said, I think #1 would be the best solution. This is Airtable’s approach - you can customize the side panel view. Notion’s approach is #2 - you can’t customize the side panel view.

4 Likes
2

We recently introdced a 'View a record" action button that somewhat solves for this if you want to open more detail in a modal.

Otherwise, we recommend the Split View, as you mentioned.

3

The advantage of a dedicated side panel is that it would allow you to view both things at the same time: the collection AND the details of the record. Whereas, right now the “View a record” action is a pop-up that blocks the center of the screen. The obvious workaround is the Split View as you recommended, but that doesn’t work with Blank page types where multiple collections are housed.

4

I think a good solution might be to have a “display” option on the view record action for if you want it to display as a modal or a slide-over. This would actually be a good option for all modal actions, to allow builders to further refine the look & feel of their app.

3 Likes
5

I like this sotluion @EthosLuke - it could introduce a lot of flexibility without trippling the ways you can do things in Noloco

Thanks for the suggestion

2 Likes
6

YES! I love that! That actually would perfectly solve the issue that led me to bring this up. Thanks for that.