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Changelog

Updates, changes, and improvements at Retool.

73 posts tagged with "Apps"

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In-place conversion to multipage

Isabella Borkovic
Software Engineer

You can now convert legacy single-page apps to multipage without needing to leave the IDE. Navigate to the Pages tab, and click Convert to multipage.

If you change your mind and want to undo this change, navigate to the Releases and history Releases and history tab and revert your app to the change before the Migrated app to multipage change.

Creating new single-page apps is no longer supported.

Single-page apps can no longer be created

Matthew Carroll
Software Engineer

The legacy option to create single-page apps has now been deprecated and is no longer available. Going forward, all newly created Retool apps support multiple pages, and newly created mobile apps support multiple screens.

Your existing single-page apps will continue to function as expected, and you are not required to migrate them. If you would like to do so, you can import legacy single-page apps as pages or use the Duplicate to multipage action on the apps landing page.

With multipage apps, Retool only evaluates the code and components of the page currently in view. The benefits of multipage apps include:

  • Greater performance of large and complex apps. Since Retool only evaluates code and components for the current page, multipage apps are 30-40% faster than a single-page app.
  • Seamless navigation between pages. Retool loads the complete app state whenever a user navigates to a single-page app. With multipage apps, navigation between pages is seamless and more responsive.
  • Improved app management. Multipage apps can replace multiple apps in your organization, such as a team's frequently used apps. This reduces the number of apps to maintain and allows for easier permission management.
  • Reduced module dependency. Modules are commonly used to create shared navigation menus across multiple single-page apps. With multipage apps, you can eliminate the need for additional modules and the complexities with maintaining them.
  • Simplified code sharing. The mechanisms for sharing code and components in multipage apps (global code, frames) are lower friction, easier to set up, and more powerful than the mechanisms for sharing code across apps (modules, query library).

The App Inspector

Isabella Borkovic
Software Engineer

The App Inspector now appears when you have the Inspector open but no component selected. The App Inspector includes the following settings that were previously found in the App Settings sidebar:

  • Browser title
  • Custom URL
  • Custom shortcuts
  • Max width

The App Inspector also includes the Persist URL parameters setting, which configures search query parameters and hash parameters to persist during page navigation and when switching pages with the “Go to Page” event handler.

Changes to ToolScript file locations

Isabella Borkovic
Software Engineer

The directory structure for apps protected using Source Control is changing to reduce the likelihood of merge conflicts.

Component positioning information (stored in ToolScript files) is now organized by page. The apps directory contains a .positions directory, which contains one file per page in the format .pageName.positions.json.

Previously, all positioning information was stored in one .positions.json file. The new structure prevents merge conflicts.

This change is live on Retool Cloud, and it will be available in a subsequent release of Self-hosted Retool.

app-name
└── .defaults.json
└── .positions.json
└── .mobilePositions.json
└── lib
└── sqlQueryName.sql
└── jsQueryName.js
└── src
└── container1.rsx
└── functions.rsx
└── main.rsx
└── metadata.json

Personal folder for draft apps

Soe Myint
Software Engineer

Retool now supports Drafts, a tab of the Apps landing page that provides a personal folder for each standard user to develop and test apps. Only you and organization admins have access to view or edit apps that you create in this section. This feature is useful for organizations where creating applications and folders is restricted, because admins don't have to give users explicit permission to create apps in their Drafts.

The availability of the Drafts tab can be managed by admins in Settings > Beta using the Drafts folders setting.

The Drafts tab is currently rolling out on Retool Cloud and will be available on the next edge release of self-hosted Retool.

App-related Debug Tool improvements

Lam Tran
Software Engineer

Improvements to Debug Tools in the App IDE are now available.

This update includes the following changes and improvements to the Debug Tools:

  • New filters in the Linting tab: Errors and Accessibility.
  • New filters in the Performance tab: Severe, Moderate, and Minor.
  • In-line actions for automatic performance optimizations.
  • Actionable recommendations to the most common performance bottlenecks.
  • Links to relevant docs for further learning.
  • Removal of performance score and app stats.

Refer to the Web app and Mobile app best practices guides for more information.

Updates to the Retool Apps landing page

Neha Gupta
Software Engineer

Retool updated the layout of the Retool Apps landing page to reduce clutter and make it easier to find the apps you need. The updated organziation includes the following tabs:

  • Recent: The most recent 50 apps that you visited. The Viewed by me column shows the last time you opened the app, and the Location column shows you where the app is located.
  • Published: All items that you have access to within your organization. Use the dropdown to filter by Apps, Folders, Modules, and Protected.
  • Starred: The apps and folders that you starred.
  • Trash: The apps and folders in your organization that were deleted.

Improvements to the command palette

Darya Verzhbinsky
Darya Verzhbinsky
Software Engineer

Retool released several changes to the Command Palette that improve the experience when using apps with multiple pages. The following new features are supported:

  • New contexts: You can now select a page or a Main frame to use as a context for your search.
  • Page actions: You can now delete, duplicate, or create new pages.
  • Improved organization: When searching for components, results are now prefixed with their page ID, making it easier to tell where each component lives.

New version of the Cascader component

Jynnie Tang
Software Engineer
MB
MB
Software Engineer

A new and improved version of the Cascader component is now available on Retool Cloud and for self-hosted organizations. Retool recommends using the new component, and the legacy version will be deprecated. You can click Upgrade in the Inspector of an existing Cascader component to use the new version.

The new Cascader features:

  • The ability to manually add an option list or dynamically map one to existing data.
  • A new dropdown look, similar to the Select component.
  • New label options (customizeable caption, color, icon).
  • Options now support numeric values in addition to string values.

Some additional changes in this version include:

  • The value of the new Cascader component is the value of the selected option. A new valuePath property enables you to have access to the path of values leading to the selected option.
  • Option values must be unique.
  • Like other modern Retool components, values for options need to be unique. If you use the one-click upgrade for Cascaders, duplicate values will have parent values appended to make them unique.
  • Like Checkbox Group and Navigation, the data source is expected to be an array of objects with a property that points to its parent. Cascader nests options by parent value.