LinkedIn
Twitter
The following feature has been added to the Preview Program. Feel free to try out the feature and report issues or possible improvements in this thread.
AppSheet is expanding how text can be formatted. For data that is typed as LongText, app creators can now choose to render Markdown or HTML in Detail views.
Note: In all views other than Detail, the value will render as plain text.
How do app creators use the feature?
- Start with data that has HTML or Markdown inputs.
In this example, the Quote column contains HTML data and the Reviews column contains Markdown data.
- In the AppSheet editor, go to Data > Columns, expand the desired table, and set the Type field to
LongTextfor the columns that you want to render Markdown or HTML in Detail views.
- Click
to modify the row, and set the Formatting field to HTML or Markdown (depending on your column data).
- Save your application. You should see the rendered text within the Detail view of your app.
How do app users use this feature?
Users can input HTML or Markdown in the appropriate fields.
What are the supported views?
Currently rich-formatted text will only be rendered in Detail views - all other views will display plain text.
What are the supported data types?
The column type must be set to LongText with the format set to HTML or Markdown.
What are the supported HTML tags?
<a>, <b>, <strong>, <i>, <u>, <em>, <mark>, <small>, <del>, <ins>, <sub>, <sup>, <p>, <li>, <ol>, <ul>, <br>, <hr>, <blockquote>, <img>, <h1>,<h2>,<h3>,<h4>,<h5>,<h6>, <table>, <tbody>,<tr>,<td>, <th>
- Unsupported tags will be rendered as plain text.
- Allowed attributes:
for<a>:href,name, andtarget
for<img>:src - All other attributes will be removed (for example, inline styles such as
<p style="color:red;">A red paragraph.</p>will be removed and will not have any effect).
What are the supported Markdown elements?
Heading, bold, italic, blockquote, ordered list, unordered list, inline code, code block, horizontal rule, link and image.
Example: Using a virtual column
- Create a virtual column and set its column type to
LongTextand formatting to HTML. - Edit the App Formula to use the
CONCATENATEformula to combine HTML tags with column values. - Save and view your app.
The resulting app:
Please let us know your feedback in this thread!
I agree. For the time being I’ve found that I can use what you see below to represent tags:
This winds up looking like this: <em>
Great stuff! Markdown support will be a huge help. This is a very good companion/addition to the formatting rules we currently use.
It would also be a huge help if the rich text elements could also render in the email and attachment/file templates of an automation task.
When you say views other than Detail and Form will be in plain text, I assume that the tags will be removed? Or do the other views include the tags? (I don’t have time to test it right now 
)
AppSheet is great but, personally, I have long felt that the no-code description is misleading. In comparison to other “low code” platforms, AppSheet may be closer so “no code.” I don’t know about that but I find @Steve’s comments consoling because I’ve had lots and lots of trouble learning the AppSheet platform. If it were really “no code,” I feel like that would make me a bit stupider than I really am. 
I understand rich long text fields can be displayed on detail view only for now but it would be better at least it is also be rendered on dashboard view, as it is quite common that we place detail view within dashboard as a part of elements.
Currently, it is looking like this.
Absolutely! The behavior should be consistent in Detail and Form views no mater where and how they are presented.
Yes, this would be very useful. It would be very nice if this worked when you have these views in a dashboard at least.
It would also be very useful to be able to control the table width.
In Dashboard view
In Detail view
Also peep this:
I think we can all agree the new summary is much better. (^_^)
<table> will be epic
- Consolidated views… here we come!
The code for anyone interested:
concatenate(
"<Table>
<tr>
<td>Year</td>
<td>Month</td>
<td>Day</td>
<td>Start Time</td>
<td>End Time</td>
<td> | </td>
<td>Duration</td>
<td>Cost</td>
<tr>
<td>", text([Log_Start_Date], 'YYYY'), "</td>
<td>", text([Log_Start_Date], 'MMM'), "</td>
<td>", Day([Log_Start_Date]), "</td>
<td>", text([Log_Start_Time], 'H:MM AM/PM'), "</td>
<td>", if(isnotblank([Log_Close_Time]), text([Log_Close_Time], 'H:MM AM/PM'), '(((ON-GOING)))'), "</td>
<td> | </td>
<td>", [Log_Duration], "</td>
<td>$", [Log_Cost], "</td>
</tr>
</table>"
)
