I’ve stumbled upon a strange behaviour when using Actions at Screens (when user visits the screen). While moving forward everything works fine, but when I use “Back” action to return to previous screen, screen action sometimes work, and sometimes not.
Here is the video (2:24) with the effect I see, fresh app.
I’m building a “wizard” routine in my app, with several steps, and users may want to go back; I’d be happy to understand what’s happening and how to avoid potential problems.
It is weird. Have when you are in your Second Screen back from Third Screen. If you see at that point in your data base the current ID of your User. Maybe it is 2 there, but the display is not “refreshing”?
@ppvaldes good advice, thanks!
Checked now - the ID is not changing in DB. Seems to me that “Enter screen” action is not performed… but why just in the 2nd screen?
@ppvaldes I’ve added 2 more screens (4th and 5th).
Seems that this glitch in update (for me - non-working actions on screen entrance) happens only after the 1st “back” click.
When I click on “back” for the 2nd time, everything works.
Just in case, here is the clonable app:
This is very interesting. Thanks for making the video and the app itself cloneable. I will bring this to the attention of the team to try to discover why this is happening. Thanks @Victor
This is indeed a bug. We have a theory as to why it is happening but obviously, need a developer to look in to it further. Thanks for bringing it to our attention @Victor
The bug is quite irritating - I’m building a “constructor” app, where users create their own customised apparel. If they press “back” in browser instead of the app (and they do), the workflow breaks.
I’ve also faced another issue, related to user rights check (Admin / not Admin) before entering the screen. Pressing “back” in the browser allows user to “avoid” the check.
This is not a bug… go to 0:25 in the video (also screenshot below). You are setting the action to execute “when a user visits the screen” - Regardless of how they got to the screen, from either the login page or a back button action, that action will execute.
You need to set the action to be triggered by the Login button, not by visiting the screen.
I’m not sure I understand why you think it’s not a bug.
I need some actions to be performed when the screen is entered. It doesn’t matter, it happens immediately after login or not, I have a lot of screens in the app (say, 7+ steps of configuration). Also, user must have a possibility to go back to previous step.
The problem arises when user hits browser’s “back” button instead of in-app “back” button. On the 1st “step back”, the actions for entering the screen are not executed. On 2nd and further “step back”, they are executed.
I can’t force the user to use in-app “back” button - this is possible when I publish the mobile app, but it is not possible with the webapps.
And after having observed user’s behaviour, I can conclude that hitting “back” in the browser is something sub-conscious, so it will be very difficult to change this habit.
I didn’t realize you were referring to the browser back button specifically. This action typically would screw up your form flow anyway. (This is why you always get the browser alert from Chrome that says “Confirm form resubmission”)
Not only with the “back” button in a browser, but also with a “link:back” action in the app.
If you would like to investigate, please find a clonable app here (I’ve posted the link above as well)
It illustrates the problem quite clearly. Try to use “back” button in the app, and see how ID is not changing (for example, when going back from screen 5 to screen 4), and then changes (back from screen 4 to screen 3). Also see how it works with “back” browser button.
“Form resubmission” doesn’t work in this scenario anyway - there is no form :).
The workaround in a mobile app is to “connect” desired actions not to On-Screen-Enter event, but to pressing “back” button event on the next screen.
But this doesn’t solve the problem of browser’s “back” button, as nothing is “connected” to it. And it is very difficult to change users’ habits of pressing this button.
