I may be wasting my time with Adalo. Suggestions?

Hi Naossoan,

Well, this is a big comment to digest but I will do my best to break it down and see if I can help.

First of all, I would like to state that as you are aware, no one tool is perfect and each tool has its advantages and disadvantages. Adalo is relatively new and is striving hard to be better and of course features and functions take time to develop and improve. With this in mind there may be some things it can and cannot do for you but it is a very flexible tool so let’s get into it.

Adalo’s Map element can only display pins from a COLLECTION. I need to display pins based off a dynamic list which changes based on a search term. This doesn’t appear to be possible with Adalo as there is no way to dynamically update a collection based off the elements of a list. At least not to my understanding.

I assume you want to add a search field and then the map update based on the results of that search? if this is the case then this is 100% possible. If you could give me more context around what you want to achieve I will show you how it is done.

On top of the poor way Adalo handles responsive elements, and not being able to display multiple filters at once in a list (filters are reductive, cannot be set to be “AND”), and thereby calendars since they are special type of list, for example I can’t have a calendar show more than one type of element.

In terms of responsiveness, this is something that does need improving and I am sure this is something Adalo will be working on but the option to create native apps and web apps does give you the option to provide for both mobile and web. With regards to the filters, there is an option to add multiple filters so if you offer an example of the use case scenario I will be able to show you how it is done.

With the calendar, you are correct, there is no way to show different colours for different data states but there are other ways to achieve this such as hiding the bookings from the calendar if they are not approved and then show lists to the user who needs to approve bookings and 'pending lists for the user who has made the bookings.

A solution to this might be to build out a block of available timeslots to be booked and chosen by the user in the calendar. This way it’s impossible for a user to request a booking that overlaps with another booking. Well, the problem with that is well, what if a user doesn’t know how long a booking will take, or the default bookings are in 1 hour increments and the user needs 5 hours. Then they have to go through and make 5 separate bookings in each timeslot which is not good.

Creating slots can be tricky but totally possible and different approaches can be found in the forum with great input from the many contributors and Adalo experts. One example can be found here Show availabilities

Adalo, like most no-code apps, may not be able to do EVERYTHING, but there isn’t one tool that can do everything and comparing tools can be tough because each has their own benefits. i hope you manage to find solutions to what you need and I am happy to help where I can, as are many others in the community so don’t be afraid to reach out for help. It’s probably best to reach out on each different function you need as large comments can be very time consuming for people to address.

Cheers
Craig

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