The title says it all! I have several tables where we have a column of indicators, a column of targets, and a column for quarterly status updates. I want other people to be able to add in their quarterly status updates without them being able to edit any of the text in the indicators or targets columns. I know there are some work-arounds by using lookups or by having a hidden column with the raw text and a visible column with the same text via a formula, but it would be so much easier if I could just lock specific columns while the page is locked, and still allow people to edit the content of other columns.
any updates on this feature? thanks!
I would like this too. To be a bit more specific, I would like to be able to prevent the editing of certain columns in certain views. I create views of tables intended for certain types of data entry, and in some of those views it would be helpful if certain columns were read-only.
For example, I may have a table of sessions during a conference and a column of session recording URLs. I can create a view for the person doing the recording prep that just shows the session titles, times, and recording URLs, with none of the other details that might confuse them. They need to be able to see the titles and times, but they should never edit these while in this view. They should only be able to edit the recording links column.
Right now in Coda, if I show them the title and time, then they are able to edit the title and time. That is unfortunate since they might accidentally change something they should not change.
In a way, this is a variation on the column’s show/hide option. Instead of just show and hide, I am asking for show/hide/read-only. If I choose to make a column read-only in a particular view, then it would still be visible, but just not editable in that view.
Note, this is not very deep protection, since the user could just go to another view to edit the read-only columns. But it is a very practical protection to make views more helpful to those doing data entry.
By the way, I am aware that I could make duplicate columns that use a formula to generate an effectively read-only version of the originals. But this is a pretty gross hack that leaves the whole table cluttered with extra duplicative columns and requires Coda to execute a bunch of pointless functions. Not a very elegant solution. Coda can do better.
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Being able to have columns that are ready only for users, but still editable by automations, buttons, etc would be awesome.
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I am in full agreement. Creating duplicate columns is even more annoying because coda does not allow you to create groupings of columns.