A good friend of mine is at a trade fair this week, hunting for new customers. To streamline his search, he created a Google Sheet that detailed the hall and stand locations of interesting companies, complete with a map image for navigation.
However, he faced challenges with the Google Sheet app on his phone: organizing the information with filters was cumbersome, and there was no way to properly view or zoom in on the map images.
Seeing his predicament, I immediately envisioned a native iOS app. In just 30 minutes, I built a prototype with placeholders.
My friend was thrilled and asked me to fully develop the app and integrate it with the Google Sheet. With the trade fair starting on Sunday, I had less than 20 hours to deliver.
I started by checking for an existing Google Sheet class in the forum and found one. After a quick purchase, I dove into understanding how to use it and which parameters to pass to control the specific sheet I needed. The app would query the sheet for the latest data and store entries in a local SQLite database for offline access or weak internet connections.
The real challenge was handling the images. The Google Sheets API doesn't support loading images directly from cells, so I manually saved each image and uploaded them to the cloud. Here, Supabase came to the rescue. Using its anonymous login feature, I created a new bucket in the Supabase dashboard, uploaded all the images, and linked them with the corresponding row IDs from the sheet. This allowed the app to display the images without needing a dedicated server.
Next, I incorporated filters and a search function using my AS_Draggable BottomCard, AS_ScrollingChips, and AS_TextFieldAdvanced libraries. I was relieved that these libraries were advanced enough to include all the features I needed.
After refining the app's appearance and fixing any bugs, I uploaded it to Apple TestFlight. My friend was able to download it and use it right away.
Although there were many more steps and features involved than I described, the entire app was completed in just 12 hours. In any case, we want to expand the whole thing and do the whole thing with a real database (with Supabase) instead of a Google Sheet, so that time and work can be saved in the future.
Thanks to B4X for making this possible!
I have to black out the content of the pictures, but I still want to share the design with you so that you can get an insight into the design:
The Main List:
The Data Filter:
The Detail Page:
However, he faced challenges with the Google Sheet app on his phone: organizing the information with filters was cumbersome, and there was no way to properly view or zoom in on the map images.
Seeing his predicament, I immediately envisioned a native iOS app. In just 30 minutes, I built a prototype with placeholders.
My friend was thrilled and asked me to fully develop the app and integrate it with the Google Sheet. With the trade fair starting on Sunday, I had less than 20 hours to deliver.
I started by checking for an existing Google Sheet class in the forum and found one. After a quick purchase, I dove into understanding how to use it and which parameters to pass to control the specific sheet I needed. The app would query the sheet for the latest data and store entries in a local SQLite database for offline access or weak internet connections.
The real challenge was handling the images. The Google Sheets API doesn't support loading images directly from cells, so I manually saved each image and uploaded them to the cloud. Here, Supabase came to the rescue. Using its anonymous login feature, I created a new bucket in the Supabase dashboard, uploaded all the images, and linked them with the corresponding row IDs from the sheet. This allowed the app to display the images without needing a dedicated server.
Next, I incorporated filters and a search function using my AS_Draggable BottomCard, AS_ScrollingChips, and AS_TextFieldAdvanced libraries. I was relieved that these libraries were advanced enough to include all the features I needed.
After refining the app's appearance and fixing any bugs, I uploaded it to Apple TestFlight. My friend was able to download it and use it right away.
Although there were many more steps and features involved than I described, the entire app was completed in just 12 hours. In any case, we want to expand the whole thing and do the whole thing with a real database (with Supabase) instead of a Google Sheet, so that time and work can be saved in the future.
Thanks to B4X for making this possible!
I have to black out the content of the pictures, but I still want to share the design with you so that you can get an insight into the design:
The Main List:
The Data Filter:
The Detail Page: