I can't really believe that it was nearly two years ago that I created the post "Knack - New Builder Coming Soon"!
Well it's here now and the old builder is due to be turned off on May 1st.
Many of us who build Knack apps for clients have been nervous about the transition due to worries about switching apps over and also the change to the 'user interface' which meant that our 'muscle memory' needed to be retrained. As it turned out we needn't have worried. Most of us have changed our client's apps over now and are enjoying the experience.
What Is The New Builder all about?
Let me say first off that this release is very dramatic in terms of the day to day experience of building Knack solutions. It feels much more modern and streamlined.
However, the main reason for this rebuild is not to provide a raft of new features - although there are some very welcome ones of those. This is more about updating the backbone of the system so that they can build out new features more quickly and with more reliability going forward.
New Features
At this stage there aren't a huge number of new features in the builder - but here is a list of the ones I am most excited about:
Image resizing - this allows you to specify a size to resize images stored in Knack - I have, over the past few years, come across several app ideas which have simply proved economically impossible due to the cost of storing large numbers of images - this solves that issue.
'On change' criteria for record rules etc - with these you can build more specific / complex business login very easily...
Ability to edit the widths in a detail view - in the past it wasn't possible to control this which meant that columns could easily waste space or be out of line...
Record rules can be added for Table inline editing.
Filters for Connection fields while inline editing.
Append and Remove options as rule actions - ability to add a value to a multi select field through an update action.
Much improved code editors for those into creating their own CSS or Javascript.
Although these new features are not life changing, they do add to an already excellent platform. Knack is very quick to build solutions and uniquely capable when it comes to transforming your business for the digital age, with the ability to include customers, suppliers and others stake holders into your app if appropriate.
In my next article I am going to start a series on making your Knack apps more appealing to look at and use - watch this space!
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