Feature Request: enable Rich Text display in Paging Grids

Certified Lead Developer

At the moment there are only two paging grid column types: plaintext and "image", which has super limited configurability.  Plaintext columns can be configured to show a link optionally, but not much more than this.

With the recent improvements in the Rich Text capabilities, to include colors, the great RichTextIcon library (plus a really slick amount of options for it), and others, it's becoming increasingly dreary to use paging grids for anything, since Editable Grids (as well as the special, less-configurable paging grids used for Record List Grids) offer so much more flexibility when each cell can be rendered as a rich text display field.

My wishlist would be to have at least one of the following in a subsequent version of Appian, as early as possible:

  • A new "gridColumn" type, i.e. "a!gridRichTextColumn", which would function a lot like a!gridTextColumn (but without the need for the "links" parameter), where it's assumed that the "data" array passed in will be one a!richTextItem for every row.  And of course the a!richTextItem would be allowed to contain the standard nested set of subcomponents when necessary, potentially allowing for different styles, different links, separate lines, and any mixture of these.
  • Alternatively, an updated version of a!gridTextColumn, where it can now be passed either plaintext (as currently) OR individual a!richTextItem instances, similar to in the prior bullet.  (Also, side note, if you guys update a!gridTextColumn again anytime soon, PLEASE PLEASE add the Help Tooltip parameter, too!)

I have no way of knowing whether there's some severe technical limitation preventing this from becoming reality, but from where I'm sitting it seems like this would be reasonably easy functionality to add.  Sometimes editable grids simply don't cut it, such as when OOB paging or sorting is strictly required, so this functionality is pretty sorely missing.

  Discussion posts and replies are publicly visible

Parents Reply Children
  • Thank you for starting this thread. It will be very beneficial to have a new rich text column. I don't want to mention this but grids have taken center stage in application development from records to forms, its everywhere. All designers like it and want it to be powerful. Paging grids is super easy to use but offered very limited capabilities and is missing in action on enhancements.

    Please also consider adding following requests on paging grid -

    1) Ability to wrap long column headers on next line - It doesn't wrap column headers automatically, very painful to justify to customer.

    2) Configure column widths - Would be handy if column widths can be allocated during design time

    3) Ability to split up columns into multiple cells or sub columns. See below for reference.

    4) Ability to split up rows into multiple sub rows

    5) Provide an ability to display a hover text on every cell. This however can be accomplished through rich text icon (NOT available in paging grid for use) but text field should also have a tool tip option, we just can't use an image or icon to display hover text when there is no need for an image or icon. This is very critical for heavy data tables and simply eliminates a need of adding additional supporting columns, if hover text is available. For instance, displaying a description on hover of status codes or providing more reasoning on what it signifies. 

    See how input 1 column is split into three cells. This is available on Decision Designer Interface and would be extremely useful for highly complex tables. Also provide an ability to split column headers into multiple cells, this would not leave any room for limitations on data representations.