Rich Text Field Showing Javascript Code
Hi everyone, I have a rich text field with a button that "completes" a task. It shows up in multiple places (including my dashboard reports) so I used javascript to return it to the current page. ...
Forum Discussion
Hi Austin,
While I didn't specifically intend to break news with my above post, yes this may be the first time this change has been mentioned on this forum.
To clarify, inserting javascript code into formulas, branding, etc has never been supported but the change we're planning to make is to prevent javascript from being inserted in places where it was not already there, and to prevent changes to formulas that have previously had javascript added. javascript has always been intended to be used in code pages and that will continue.
This change will not impact existing formulas that use javascript, in that they will be continue to work as-is after the change. We currently have no plans to stop supporting that. However, this seems like a good opportunity to remind folks that it is never a good idea to use javascript that way as those formulas could stop working at any time without warning. That continues to be the case, and those formulas will become more likely to break as we work to update the Quick Base UI over the next few years (for those who leverage DOM objects in their javascript-powered qb formulas).
We'll have more details to share about these plans in the coming months.
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Brian Cafferelli
Product Marketing Manager | Quick Base
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While I didn't specifically intend to break news with my above post, yes this may be the first time this change has been mentioned on this forum.
To clarify, inserting javascript code into formulas, branding, etc has never been supported but the change we're planning to make is to prevent javascript from being inserted in places where it was not already there, and to prevent changes to formulas that have previously had javascript added. javascript has always been intended to be used in code pages and that will continue.
This change will not impact existing formulas that use javascript, in that they will be continue to work as-is after the change. We currently have no plans to stop supporting that. However, this seems like a good opportunity to remind folks that it is never a good idea to use javascript that way as those formulas could stop working at any time without warning. That continues to be the case, and those formulas will become more likely to break as we work to update the Quick Base UI over the next few years (for those who leverage DOM objects in their javascript-powered qb formulas).
We'll have more details to share about these plans in the coming months.
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Brian Cafferelli
Product Marketing Manager | Quick Base
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Brian,
I certainly understand your position on the javascript but I really really really really hope that Quick Base is not purely going to block functionality that is clearly necessary without providing a way to do it. There are SOOOOO many people using that code block I am using for simple URL manipulation. I use it on my dashboards to reload the page etc.
I also am a bit concerned because I reached out to Quick Base support first for help on how to do this without Javascript and they said go to a partner. That was it, and with COVID my company is not in a position to invest in outside resources at the moment. And outside resources on community pointed me here.
In this particular example, all I am trying to do is fetch the current URL I am on and use it as my redirect. This is a button to "Complete a task". I use it on a dashboard report (so people can hit complete from the dashboard home page) as well as on the report link to the tasks table on my projects forms. Again so people can complete tasks without 5,000 clicks.
Right now I have one field with this button (since it appears in multiple places) and I use the javascript to determine where i am so I can redirect back to it. How would you suggest doing this without javascript? I would gladly get rid of the javascript if you can point me in the right direction here? But so far this is all the help I got.....
Thanks!
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Ivan Weiss
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I certainly understand your position on the javascript but I really really really really hope that Quick Base is not purely going to block functionality that is clearly necessary without providing a way to do it. There are SOOOOO many people using that code block I am using for simple URL manipulation. I use it on my dashboards to reload the page etc.
I also am a bit concerned because I reached out to Quick Base support first for help on how to do this without Javascript and they said go to a partner. That was it, and with COVID my company is not in a position to invest in outside resources at the moment. And outside resources on community pointed me here.
In this particular example, all I am trying to do is fetch the current URL I am on and use it as my redirect. This is a button to "Complete a task". I use it on a dashboard report (so people can hit complete from the dashboard home page) as well as on the report link to the tasks table on my projects forms. Again so people can complete tasks without 5,000 clicks.
Right now I have one field with this button (since it appears in multiple places) and I use the javascript to determine where i am so I can redirect back to it. How would you suggest doing this without javascript? I would gladly get rid of the javascript if you can point me in the right direction here? But so far this is all the help I got.....
Thanks!
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Ivan Weiss
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- Hi Ivan,
Since Javascript is a general-purpose programming language, we know that Quick Base will never be able to solve every single problem which can be solved with javascript. On the contrary, as a no-code platform we aim to enable non-coders to solve a huge variety of important business problems much more quickly than could be done by coding a solution from scratch using a programming language such as javascript.
Speaking more specifically about your formula to reload the current page, we are considering a new feature which would allow that without the use of javascript. We're doing the same for a handful of other common problems which folks are solving by inserting javascipt into qb formulas today, and we expect to share more information on those features later this year.
Now, putting the future of Quick Base aside for a minute, I understand the time savings you get by allowing someone to update a large number of records without their having to click back to the previous page for each record. Without using javascript in your formula, I think you've got a few options:
- Using grid edit instead would allow someone to update the status of one record as Completed, then quickly copy and paste to each other record they want to update.
- Or, if you wanted to go with the button you can redirect to a specific page. For example, if the button is on the List All report (QID=1), you would use this formula:
URLRoot() & "db/" & Dbid() & "?a=API_EditRecord&rid=" & [Record ID#] & "&_fid_6=Completed&rdr=" & URLEncode(URLRoot() & "db/" & Dbid() & "?a=q&qid=1")For the formula above, if you have multiple pages where you want the button to appear, you can copy the field for each other page, like your dashboard, and each version of the formula would redirect to a different page. The setup for that is a little more complex but it provides the same streamlined workflow for your app's users.
Then, if neither of those work well, that's when I would consider whether it's worth working with one of our partners to build a custom solution that may meet your needs better.
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Brian Cafferelli
Product Marketing Manager | Quick Base
------------------------------- Have the engineers at Quickbase ever seen major problems from JS in forms? I'm concerned that QB is losing tons of functionality for mostly acedemic reasons, but I'm not a JS expert so I'm totally open to being educated. Either way, I've worked for a few QSPs and as a QB admin at several companies and all use JS in forms (as well as iFrames, although rarely). I'm sure you've heard this before, but its so useful to have this functionality.
I am very strongly suggesting that you do not move forward with bocking JS in forms completely. Please instead coud you consider blocking by default and let the administrator decide if they would like to enable JS. Please take the same approach with iFrames.
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Jake R
------------------------------- Hi Jake. I'll jump in here as the person driving our multi-year UI refresh journey. Our priority as a platform is time-to-value, not necessarily pixel perfect control.
We have done significant research on this in the past 12 months. Many of our partners and customers have been involved in this. Arbitrary code in a place it wasn't intended in any software system is considered a security vulnerability. As a software platform that serves thousands of enterprise customers with rigorous security controls, security and supportability has to take precedence. In the case of Quick Base, the intended place for JavaScript code has always been code pages.
Without getting too far into the weeds, there are numerous conflicts that arise with unsupported code on any page, since we cannot regression test for it. As we are significantly investing in our interface, this only increases the likelihood issues will appear which we have no way to support. Even if an administrator approves it, there is still a support and maintenance challenge and things can break without notice.
Long term, we absolutely understand the value in extending the platform and have a detailed strategy in place to allow for further customization and power. That won't all be in the way of JavaScript though. Adding native capabilities, such as those to our formula engine, are going to reduce the need for the unsupported and supported code, getting you to the ideal experience faster.
Finally, we have an extensibility strategy we are building towards which will allow safe and intended extension points. For example in our new dashboards, we are exploring allowing builders to insert a custom code page to be inserted and receive filter events so that a custom chart or report can feel native to the end user. And in our new forms, iFrames will absolutely be supported. We just need to carefully keep the plates spinning between short term, long term, usability, supportability and security.
Hope this helps.
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Harrison Hersch
Director of Product Operations
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