How to generate a list from the bottom up?

Is there currently a way to generate a list from the bottom-up for chat purposes (not just by selecting “reverse scroll”)?

I ask this because when I select “reverse scroll” and sort from oldest to newest in the message list, the screen loads through every previous message that was ever sent and it can ruin the user experience. It becomes almost impossible to build a chat app because your option is to either load the entire history of a conversation between people and auto-scroll down the screen (takes forever and is bad UX) or only load the most recent portion using a filter by created date and then taking away the user’s ability to scroll up to load previous messages (user now can’t see message history).

Has anyone building a chat app found a solution to this issue?

I’m wondering if I can use the Adalo API to workaround this somehow. I saw there is a limit parameter in the API so maybe somehow I can use that along with the “load items as user scrolls” feature (but I’m not entirely sure how that feature works so I’ll have to test it). If there’s any way to use the Adalo API to solve this issue please feel free to let me know :slight_smile:

Hi Kevin,

I don’t think there’s a good way around this. You could just filter the list in the other direction, which would be weird for users the first time, but maybe a cool differentiator in the future? Most recent chat sits at the top, instead of the bottom?

Adalo let’s you reverse scroll a screen, maybe try this too although I don’t think it’s what you want (I haven’t tested it).

Found a way around this in case anyone is curious. Interact directly with the Adalo API and use the offset function to skip through old records (this will shorten the list one has to scroll through). Then use an offset counter as a property for the logged-in user and allow them to scroll up and “show all messages” (with a button press) if they want to (and reset the offset counter to 0 upon pressing the button) which will propagate the entire message history.

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