Run DESKTOP Coda UI on Mobile & Tablet

Showcase Tips and Hacks
1

I have several clients who never use a desktop or laptop.

So they expect EVERYTHING to run on their smartphones and/or tablets.
But, as we all know, the CODA MOBILE app is not as versatile as the DESKTOP version.

So I set these clients up to run the DESKTOP version of the Coda UI on their smartphones and tablets.

This gives them the exact same layouts, features and user experience that all our desktop users experience. The only thing that is not available is the right-mouse-button-click event (unless the user has a bluetooth mouse, as some of them do). But this is not a problem, as the right-click gesture is not needed for any of the workflows we deploy on Coda. And most on-screen objects respond to the long-press gesture as a right-click.

Sometimes I design special versions of pages just for mobile users, to reduce the number of items on the page etc. Users can pan and zoom around the page using the pinch-gesture.

So I thought it might be useful to some makers if I shared how we set this up on Android devices.

RUN CODA DESKTOP ON MOBILE OR TABLET

  1. uninstall the coda app if it is present
  2. open your chrome browser
  3. enter the url ‘coda.io’ to open your Coda account (log-in if asked)
  4. use the 3-dots-menu of browser (top-right) to set the “Desktop site” checkbox on
  5. you will see your list of documents - your ‘Coda home-page’
  6. to create an icon for a specific doc; open that doc (otherwise skip this step)
  7. press the 3-dots-menu of the browser(top right)
  8. select the option “Add to Home Screen”
  9. edit the label to abbreviate the title and tap “Add”
  10. tap “Add” again to add this icon to your home screen
  11. now you can just tap on any of these icons to open Coda in the desktop UI
  12. when you open Coda, turn screen to landscape for the best experience

This also lets you and doc makers EDIT docs, just like on the desktop (if pages are unlocked).

You can create and edit FORMULAS, TABLES, COLUMNS, COLUMN-FORMULAS etc.

To edit a canvas-button, you need to long-press it (tap and hold for 1 sec) to open the Button Settings menu.

Of course, this is just a hack and far from ideal, and we hope the Coda team get to revamp the official mobile app soon. But meantime, my millenial-executive clients with no laptops can use the automations we have developed for them.

I have not yet done this for Apple devices, but I am sure there is a similar procedure for them.

Respect
Max
Λgile Δynamics Lab

15 Likes
2

So my thoughts are that none of the Coda developers ever use Coda on a mobile device. Because how as a developer could you work with such a crappy mobile interface and not do something about it.

1 Like
3

many many years ago i was the CTO for a startup that made a tool for putting jira forms on mobile devices (anyone remember the blackberry?)

i insisted we “eat our own dogfood” by commanding our dev, test, & support teams to use our product on mobiles every day.

we even insisted that all time-sheets, bug reports, project updates, & wiki updates must be done with jira on mobiles with our product.

how they howled and wailed and knashed their teeth!

but they soon got fed-up with our bugs and glitches, and fixed them!

they were used to testing our product on nice big monitors on nice big PCs with oodles of RAM.
but now they had to slum it with our customers with tiny screens on tiny devices.
they felt our customet’s pain.

it worked. the mobile UX improved greatly.

3 Likes