App designer components

The App Designer is the core of the platform that enables a user to design and configure the modules of the app that the user needs.

Add an App

To get to the app designer, you need to add an app first. Go to your dashboard by visiting your Workplace (<yourcompany>.clappia.com) and click on the "New App" button.

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You should land on the App Designer screen. You can name your app accordingly.

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Components of the App Designer

Designer Area

This is the area in which you need to add your modules. The final app will look very similar to whatever components are added in this area.

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Section

A section wraps a group of software modules. You can add multiple blocks inside a section and have logic implemented on all of them together. This also helps as a group identifier for the end-users.

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Right Panel

A right panel provides the configuration options for any component selected in the left designer area. In the example given below, the section details can be changed by clicking it on the left.

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You can also clone or delete a module from the right panel.

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New Section Buttons

Any new section can be added by clicking on the "Add Section" buttons.

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First Module Button

This is the button that you need to click to add the first module in a section.

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Next Module Button

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Module Selector

On clicking the + buttons for new modules, you should see a popup of different modules that can be selected as per the need.

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Module Variables

Every time you configure a module, a variable name is automatically generated. This variable can be used to add calculation and logic in your app. This is very similar to Excel cell reference. You can use the same Excel formula syntax to refer a module and add calculation and logic.

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Changing Block Types

Once you have selected a module, you can always change the type of module later if you need. For example, changing from Single Selector to Dropdown, Single line text to Multi Line Text etc.

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Select the new block type, then click on update.

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The module will then change to the selected block type.

Not every module has the option to be changed and some modules can be switched to only a few other modules. Any configurations made to the previous module will go away once changed, only the label and variable name will remain. Use the undo option at the top of the screen to get back the original module with configurations.

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