We've redesigned the Calcapp website to make it easier to read and
quicker to use. Guides and blog posts now have an outline, so you
can jump straight to the section you need, and the website works
better on phones.
We've added 20 comprehensive templates covering major industries,
from agriculture to transportation. Each template includes
realistic calculations, giving you a solid foundation for building
apps in your field.
When your app name starts with an emoji, we now display it larger
and more prominently, making your app list easier to scan and
navigate. This builds on what many users already do to organize
their apps.
Control which screen users see first based on user roles, launch
options or saved field values. This is also a great opportunity to
hide data tables and calculations.
Eleven new types of buttons make your apps easier to use and more
powerful. Buttons can run action formulas, change the active
screen, copy text to the clipboard, show messages and more.
Action formulas make things happen, unlike regular functions, which
calculate values. They are our biggest new feature yet. Use them to
model complex business logic.
Our new data editor allows you to easily create and edit
spreadsheet-like data tables. Data can be imported from
spreadsheets through copy and paste. Use XLOOKUP to look up values
in data tables.
Our new formula autocomplete system provides helpful suggestions
for what you may want to type next. To reference a field on any
screen, just type part of its name or label and let us do the rest.
All text properties can now be edited as templates. Change the text
as you normally would in the inspector and insert formula fragments
between special markers. This makes it much easier to edit email
bodies sent by your app.
The new Items property allows you to access all items, including
fields and buttons, as a single array. That makes it easy to
calculate the sum of all fields of a screen, or determine if all
fields of your app are valid, with short, readable formulas.
When multiple items are checked in the app designer that use the
same formula, this shared formula can now be edited. We also
describe the new special formula value Item and the related
performance improvements we've made.
The screens sidebar can now be resized, line breaks can be inserted
into formulas, sliders work better on touch screens and you get
more disk space for images. Our latest release is full of minor
features such as these.
The new function LET enables you to assign names to values for use
inside a single formula. LET can make formulas shorter and easier
to read and can help them run faster.
Named values allow you to assign names to values returned from
formulas. Unlike hidden fields, named values can represent anything
a formula can return, including screens and arrays.
Browse buttons and the BROWSE function allow you to determine if
links open in a new web browser window or tab or replace the app.
An app-wide default setting can also be changed, which also affects
where text box links open.
The bodies of sent emails can now be edited as templates, making
for a more comfortable experience. The fields to include can be set
visually. Most report-related properties can now be set through
formulas, and report-related action functions offer lots of
flexibility.
Our documentation is now integrated into Calcapp Creator. A popup
now appears with function parameter information when editing
formulas. Documentation is also part of autocomplete.
After two years, our new formula engine is finally ready. It powers
more than 100 new functions, operators and properties, making more
types of apps possible than ever before.
We now support 102 new functions, including Excel 2021 marvels like
XLOOKUP and FILTER, spreadsheet classics like SUMIF, COUNTIFS,
INDEX and MATCH as well as the power user favorites MAP and REDUCE.
Calcapp now supports arrays and ranges. Arrays are collections of
values which enable many of our new functions and properties. A
range is a short-hand for constructing arrays with many elements.
(Need to sum 100 fields? Easy!)
Excel 2021's XLOOKUP function is now fully supported. It does
everything VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP do and more. Use an app to convert
table data to XLOOKUP formulas.
Fully determine the bodies of emails you send using formulas. You
can also use formulas to set text that appears before or after
field values in reports.
Get full control over your reports. Want to only include fields
with values greater than five? Just use FILTER. Also, hidden fields
can now be left out of reports.
Skip straight to the results if the entered data checks out, or
collect supplemental information otherwise. Stop copying and
pasting screens — now you can make many screens send the user to
the same destination.
What's got half a million words? The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And
our new formula and property documentation, which is now on the
web. Thousands of formula examples make getting started with all
the new features easy.
Use the IF function with multiple conditions without having to use
more than two parentheses. Use SWITCH when you need to test the
same value for equality against other values.
CSV files produced by report buttons can now be customized to make
them compatible with more apps and services. Change the decimal
separator and the delimiter separating values and lay out values
vertically instead of horizontally.
Colors can now be referenced with no risk of typos, thanks to
"enums." XLOOKUP, XMATCH and FORMATDATE also support enums, which
help warn you of errors early.
You can now reset your users' passwords directly from Calcapp
Creator. Use this feature if your users have trouble resetting
their own passwords or if you'd like to set their passwords for
them.
The auto-height feature enables an app embedded in your web page to
adjust its height in response to content changes. This feature is
now also supported for AMP, a technology which makes web pages load
faster.
Apps built with Calcapp now qualify as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs),
enabling more third-party tools to work with them. We have also
made our offline experience more robust, flexible and performant.
Users who are permitted to access your private apps can now be
added in bulk. Also, you can now download the entire list of users,
complete with tags, as a CSV file, which can easily be imported
into a spreadsheet.
You can now download statistics for your app as a CSV file, which
you can easily import into your spreadsheet. Use your spreadsheet's
formulas to process the data and visualize it through graphs. For
private apps, the CSV file has information on how individual users
are using your app.
The Statistics window now enables you to learn how a particular
user is using a private app. For such apps, there is a new
drop-down menu with a list of all users you have defined in the
Users window.
Easily apply borders and shadows to embedded apps with the revamped
embed tab which appears when you share an app, with a live preview.
You can also experiment with our new auto-height feature, which
adjusts the height of the containing iframe to match the app
content.
The new auto-height feature for embedded apps changes the height of
the containing iframe to match the contents displayed by the app,
so you'll never waste space on your page with an oversized iframe.
Host pages can now interact with their embedded apps through our
new JavaScript library. For instance, host pages can now get all
values of an app through the library. We expect this feature to be
used by third-party services wishing to integrate with Calcapp.
Microsoft Flow enables you to glue your apps together with
thousands of services, like Excel or Slack, in the same vein as
Zapier. It needs a so-called JSON schema to work, though, which are
tedious to write. Calcapp Creator can now generate them for you.
Calcapp now supports paid plans and we are ending our beta program.
To ensure that your apps continue working, upgrade them to a paid
plan before May 14. This post walks you through the steps you need
to take to upgrade your apps.
Private apps require your users to sign in before gaining access to
your app and require you to define who those users are. User tags
determine which users can sign into a particular app. Use the
USERHASTAG formula function to customize your app based on the tags
of a signed-in user.
The new Statistics window uses graphs to shine a light on your
app's performance, in terms of app launches, sent reports and
signed-in users, with a customizable date range. Use it to compare
an app against others in your account or to compare your usage to
your app's plan limits.
The Manage apps window now categorizes apps by their plans. It also
allows you to sort apps by their modification time, which is great
if you store many backup copies of your apps. Duplicating an app
always puts the copy on the Free plan.
Email report buttons now support setting the Reply-To, carbon copy
and blind carbon copy addresses as well as the attachment file
name. Buttons for downloaded reports now support setting the file
name of the report. Finally, we now support Zoho Flow in addition
to Zapier and Microsoft Flow.
You can now change your password using a new account settings box.
If you have a system-generated password, you will be asked to
change it the next time you sign in. Finally, you can now reset
your password.
You can now insert your own images in text boxes. They can either
be centered or float to the right or to the left of the text. A
slider lets you adjust the image width. Images work offline and are
responsive, meaning that they work well on any screen.
Use your own logo with your app to raise awareness of your brand.
The logo is displayed on the loading screen and on home screens
your app has been added to.
You can now use 26 new fonts when formatting text in text boxes,
including serif, sans-serif, monospace and playful display fonts.
Custom fonts work even when your app runs offline.
Calcapp now supports text alignment, underlined and strikethrough
text and different font sizes. You can also upload your own images
and make use of 26 available fonts.
Import spreadsheet data directly for use with drop-down fields.
Paste the data from your table into our app to automatically
generate Calcapp formulas.
Values of drop-down fields can now be edited as text. This feature
makes it possible to paste values from a spreadsheet all at once.
It also enables more efficient keyboard editing.
You can now customize the loading screen, also known as the splash
screen. Change the colors or hide the logo, the progress indicator
or both. You can also fully disable the loading screen, which is
useful for apps embedded in websites.
You can now set base colors for your entire app through the start
screen. These colors affect not just your panels but also the
loading screen. We have also added a theme selector with five
pre-defined color themes to allow you to more easily experiment
with colors.
Calcapp now supports three new text-processing functions, enabling
you to determine if text matches a certain pattern and to extract
and replace text, also using patterns. The three functions use
so-called regular expressions.
The new CHOOSE function can be used as a compact, fast alternative
to IF in some situations. Use it together with the Index property
of drop-down fields to quickly return data matching a value
selected by your user.
The new Index property of drop-down fields returns the numeric
position of the selected value and the Size property returns the
number of values. Index is designed to work well with the new
CHOOSE formula function.
Calcapp now supports 79 languages and 147 language variants,
enabling numbers, dates and times to be formatted correctly. We
have translations for app text provided by Calcapp in 30 languages.
Five languages have been translated by human translators and the
rest using machine-translation.
Use the new zoom level feature to make apps appear larger or
smaller. Associate a formula with the zoom level property to give
your users control over the size with, say, a slider or a switch
field. Be sure to make these fields persistent so the zoom level is
remembered.
New properties enable you to set validation messages, field units
and labels of groups, fields, buttons and list panel options
through formulas. This feature enables your apps to more closely
adapt to values entered by your users.
Use four new functions to turn numbers into formatted text strings.
Another four functions convert numbers stored in text strings to
pure numbers. All new functions take the app language into account
and support 147 language variants.
A new start screen now greets you when starting Calcapp Creator.
Use it to set app-wide properties, like the app language and zoom
level, and to change the app name. There are also links to various
resources.
New properties help you determine if your user is using an iPhone,
an Android device, a Windows PC, an iPad or a Mac. Use this feature
to do things like only showing a text box if the user is running an
iPhone or changing app colors based on the operating system.
You can now pad numbers with leading zeroes by setting a minimum
number of integer digits in the inspector. With a minimum number of
four digits, 23 is formatted as 0023. As a bonus, we show how to
accomplish the same thing using formulas and share some news
regarding the venerable IF function.
Some countries use a 12-hour clock in everyday life, but a 24-hour
clock in some professions. Our new release enables you to use a
language that normally uses a 12-hour clock and still use a 24-hour
clock for some time fields.
Assign subject lines to reports you send from apps with our new
release. You can determine the subject line using a formula,
enabling you to include parts of the report in the subject line
itself. Use this feature in conjunction with labels or rules in
your email client to automatically sort incoming reports.
The largest apps created with Calcapp can take can take a long time
to load. Today, we are speeding up the process considerably by
compressing apps and PDF reports before they are downloaded.
Sliders enable users to rapidly change the value of a number field
within a defined range. On mobile devices with cumbersome on-screen
keypads, we expect sliders to become the preferred way of
experimenting with numeric inputs.
Steppers enable users to quickly increase or decrease numbers using
dedicated buttons, displayed next to the value. A variety of
properties are available for customizing steppers, including
minimum and maximum values.
The new formula functions TONUMBER, TOLOGICAL and TOTEXT make it
easy to convert values to numbers, logical values and text strings,
respectively. Converting numbers stored as text to true numbers was
previously impossible if the number had a fractional part.
The tour template shows off many of Calcapp's features and has been
completely rewritten. The new tour demonstrates steppers, sliders,
number formatting, date calculations, cross-references and more.
There's even a color selector for the background color.
Remove the navigation bar from shared apps that have only one panel
simply by ensuring that you don't type a panel title. This change
especially benefits apps embedded in other websites.
The Share app button now reads Update app if your app has been
shared. Changes you make to an app never go live for your users
until you give the go-ahead by pressing the button.
Calcapp now supports inserting links to web addresses, email
addresses and phone numbers. Linking to a phone number enables
users on cell phones to place calls directly from an app. Email
links cause a user's email client to appear, with the recipients,
subject line and message body you specify.
Calcapp now supports formatted text in text boxes. Use bold,
italic, quotes, links, various headings and bulleted and numbered
lists. All features are keyboard-accessible for a smooth typing
experience.
Reports can now be opened directly from an app, instead of having
them emailed. Use the new feature on its own, or use it as a
preview feature your users can use to check reports before sending
them.
Colors can be selected using formulas that take into account values
entered by your users. You can use this feature to create field
validation that really stands out or to enable your users to select
their preferred color scheme.
Give your apps a custom color scheme by setting only a few base
colors and Calcapp will figure out the rest. You can also set
colors individually for precise control.
The new color picker allows you to select the colors used in your
app. You can select colors either from a palette with colors that
work well together or any color by selecting a hue, saturation and
brightness. It also supports entering named colors and colors from
the color models RGB, HSL and HSB (HSV).
Our next release enables you to remove panels without also removing
the panels that follow them. As a result, you can now do things
like removing the first panel of an app without touching the rest
of the app.
Use our new copy and paste feature to copy fields and other items
from one panel to another or to copy entire panels. This is a great
way to copy data from one app to another.
The new Panels sidebar allows you to quickly move to individual
panels. You can also reorganize panels by dragging and dropping
them. For better control of your panel structure, copy and paste
panels instead.
Our next release will allow you to insert panels anywhere in your
app. You will also be able to copy and paste panels and fields and
other items. A new sidebar will give you an overview of your panels
and enable you to reorder them.
You can now reference fields from other panels by clicking on them
when you're editing a formula. You can also reference buttons and
the other items that make up an app from your formulas by clicking
on them.
Fields, buttons, calculation panel groups, text boxes, list panel
options and panels now offer a variety of calculated properties you
can use to make your apps more dynamic. This post offers the
complete list.
Use formulas to hide and validate fields, make buttons grayed-out,
determine the recipients of reports and more through calculated
properties. These formulas are evaluated when your app is run and
make it possible to build far more dynamic, complex apps.
Use cross-references to refer to other panels with our next
release, enabling you to build truly large, inter-connected apps.
This update also lays the groundwork for calculated properties,
which are coming soon.
Use data validation to flag invalid values with our next release.
Specify allowable intervals for number fields to determine
validity. A later release will allow you to use formulas to
determine if a field is valid or not.
Customize the sender of reports that are emailed from your apps
with our next release. Soon, you will also be able to determine the
sender using a formula.
Access the formatted values of fields from formulas and prevent
persistent fields from being reset with our upcoming release. Also,
apps will look better on desktops and on tablets and the app
creation experience will be improved.
Starting with our next release, fields will be given names based on
the captions you type for them at all times. This makes formulas
easier to read. You can still assign names manually.
Our October release enhances Calcapp Creator with comprehensive
keyboard shortcuts for navigation, editing and panel management,
plus a helpful cheat sheet.
We provide better control over number formatting with the new
inspector. Format numbers as currency, percentages, fractions or
use scientific notation, with control over decimal places and
thousands separators.
Our upcoming release significantly improves error handling. Instead
of failing silently, Calcapp now displays helpful error codes and
messages, plus new functions for working with errors.
With our upcoming release, editing formulas becomes more
convenient. You can insert field names simply by clicking on them
while editing formulas, just like in spreadsheets.
With 244 functions, you need an easy way to find the function
you're looking for and its documentation. We introduce the function
browser available in the inspector sidebar.
Our upcoming release will feature significantly expanded support
for formula functions with 244 functions spanning text,
date-manipulation, statistics, finance, engineering and
trigonometry.