My Almost-Fully-Automated Reading Tracker

[Pch]

Hi !

I just wanted to share with you the reading tracker I’ve built .

For some context, I discovered Coda by chance, maybe 2 months ago, searching something completely different.
I didn’t test it right away because at that time, I had no idea of a database I could use as a test drive.

But then I began to read Spawn, a comics which I bought as “Collected”.

Usually, I use an app’ on my phone to track my readings, but, because there’s no page numbers in the comics, I couldn’t use it (well, I didn’t want to have to count each page I just read, I just wanted to enjoy the Comic )
Plus, AFAIK, despite being an excellent app’, you still can’t re-read a book, which for me has always been kind of problem.

So, there was my missing idea !

But before putting my brain into this, knowing nothing about Coda (what could be done and how), I checked the community and found this topic :

Simple TimeTracker

I’ve created a simple Time Tracker and integrated it into the CRM template - but it also works fine on its own.

Which helped me to get started !

Few weeks later (and a tremendous amount of knowledge more), mixing this simple base with the “automated” functionalities of the app’ I used before, I now have another " app’ " where I can track the readings of my books and comics and just enjoy them ! (In my personal doc, the tracker differentiates “Comics” from “Books” and I read the comics in number of issue(s) instead of pages )
Plus, it allows re-readings too !

So, I thought it might be useful to someone else

I tried to explain how it works in the doc as clearly as I could (which is not easy and that’s why it’s a bit long ).

Don’t hesitate : Try it, Test it, explore it, it’s there for that

Thanks for reading and helping me building this !

PS: The other related topics that helped me are :

• Need help with cumulative results - #6 by Ander
• Multipart progress bar from table rows
• Cumulative Sum for tracking progress over time? - #3 by Andrew_Klein
• Pop open a row with a button - #3 by justin
• Calculating a person's age? - #14 by Josh_Szwarga

[mallika]

Thanks for sharing this. Really cool and I liked the way you linked the posts that helped you get here.

[Pch]

Thank you very much !

Building this I often found myself switching between the tracker and the community .
Either because I got a question or was encountering a tiny problem and each time, I didn’t need to ask simply because the answer or the solution (even partial) was already here . (The community like Coda itself are both wonderful ).

So, sharing this tracker, I just thought that if someone would like to use or replicate it (even for a different use), it could be useful to have some “help ready” to understand what’s going on in the formulas .

I must admit I’m lucky to have a little bit of background in databases so I wasn’t entirely in some unknown territories . But as Coda have its own peculiar very dynamic/organic way to work leaving so much space for creativity (with buttons, packs and automations, for examples) this was quite new for me so I had to learn and those topics helped more than anything else and if they helped me, they could help someone else too .
That’s why I included them in the doc .

And now that I’m hooked to Coda (it was a very successful “test drive” ! Congrats to the team for building Coda ), after building this and actively see what it could do and where it could take me, I’m pretty sure I could “recreate” with Coda some other app’s I use that are great but always only satisfying me at 99% .

Thank you, again !

[Jean_Pierre_Traets]

Dear @Pch,

Nice project with a good combination of structure and nice formulas and use of icons to get the doc visual attractive.

Suggestion: if you agree, a good starter template to be added to the templates!

Why:

• It’s a use case scenario that all of us know
• Showing that the data generated, creates potential to see it from different perspectives
• Attractive layout with the use of icons

[Pch]

Thank you very much for your nice comment ! It is very very much appreciated !

@Jean_Pierre_Traets

Suggestion: if you agree, a good starter template to be added to the templates!

Why:

• It’s a use case scenario that all of us know
• Showing that the data generated, creates potential to see it from different perspectives
• Attractive layout with the use of icons

As for your suggestion , I’m thinking about it
(Exploring templates, I discovered very recently it could be done (they are some many things to explore here )

Thank you again !