Hi all,
We’re working on a new feature to show how data in a doc is connected, and want your feedback!
Click the updated link icon next to any view name to open a new pane that shows which table the view connects to, and which other views show the same data. You can also see who changed the table last and how much data it contains.
Or, click (i) on the toolbar to open the pane with a summary of all tables in the doc, and drill down see details for each.
We’re still actively working on this and would love your feedback – What information helps you and your team most to understand a doc? Anything you’d want us to add or remove? Which interaction details are helpful, and are there any that you’d change?
I’m new to the community and just read your post. Thanks for the opportunity to offer feedback.
My first impression is that this capability is quite impressive and demonstrates there is a powerful engine under the Coda hood. Not sure how many have had the pleasure of writing SQL code to extract a list of tables and views from say Oracle, but having this new data map is quite handy.
Two use cases I thought of immediately are: (1) showcases how well data is organized (or not); (2) over time, allows for decluttering (i.e. spotting data or views of data which aren’t useful any longer and should be cleaned up).
That said, I believe there is a much more powerful use case, but not one I can readily test at the moment. When an existing doc (that contains multiple tables and views) is shared with me, I expect the feature would allow for quick assimilation of the data.
In terms of additions, I initially thought of adding a search capability, but the general search function is already so capable as to make anything else redundant.
Hi @Chris_Stier, thanks for the feedback! Great to hear the use cases you have in mind.
Would love to see if & how you use this over time - if you end up later with a need to declutter, or have to jump into an existing doc, check back in and let us know how it goes.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m very happy to see that you’re using the right panel.
This begins to really look like the summary navigation of my dream
Hey @nathan
I tried the summary and it’s great!
Where my ideas goes a bit beyond, it’s with a summary control, or formatting text on the canvas as bookmarks. Then we could navigate a long section in the same menu summary as the tables, but with links to bookmarks in the canvas.
Wow, this is cool! It really helps to get an overview and also to quickly navigate
Two things I just ran into:
When there are a lot of tables, the map shows me only one of them, and immediately brings the “show more” button, even though there is more than enough space to show all the tables in the first place
Screenshot
When table has no view, there is a quick guide on how to create one. You use a white ‘plus button’ there. I think this could be confusing for new Coda users, since it is not clear if you mean the orange button in the toolbar or one of the two blue buttons (add col, add row), that the user might see right in this moment next to his table.
Thanks @Daniel_Stieber! Really helpful for you to call these out. We’re going to make a couple updates based on your feedback:
Always show a minimum number of tables. (Right now we show first only the tables with 1 or more views, and any table without views is behind the “Show more” link).
We’re updating the text to explain the button is on the toolbar. We’d like to make it red too, but doing that
clashes fairly strongly against the background of the pane.
