Forum Discussion

MattWinger's avatar
MattWinger
Qrew Trainee
7 years ago

List of things that should be CUSTOMIZABLE on our Apps

Here is an outline what at a very minimum should be customizable:
1. Ability to add a logo (exists today)
2. Header color
3. Header icon/text color, font and size
4. Tab color
5. Tab text color, font and size
6. Icon bar icon colors (including standard QuickBase Icons)
7. Report Header color
8. Report Header text color, font and size
If you want to put QuickBase somewhere on the page for your own branding put it in the footer "Powered by QuickBase".

Many web apps offer these features in their free version.
PLEASE give us this ability.

I hope other reply to this in support and with others I may have forgotten
  • A lot of this is in UserVoice. If not, you should add there as that is where the product teams review and look at votes and such to determine priorities.

    The level of control you are looking for is not common (although, not uncommon) in this sort of "be anything to anyone" platform. Quick Base has to balance a cohesive experience that is reliable with customization desires. While you as a builder are their customer, all of your users are indirectly their customer as well. If a builder makes a poor decision and selects clashing colors, weird sizes or any number of other things and users have a bad experience, this reflects poorly on Quick Base. In fact, many end users do not understand what is on the onus of Quick Base vs their organization/builders. You can see evidence of this when the community and/or UserVoice has threads about business-specific issues that Quick Base cannot help with.

    Quick Base has a goal of getting builders off the ground quickly. The more choices you introduce, the more choices you have to make which slows down the process and introduces risk. Every single variable, toggle, switch and setting introduced has a virtually endless amount of reprocussions down the line that Quick Base has to account for. Don't forget they don't even know all of the different ways people use the platform.

    Many people consider something not being flexible a positive, not a negative. Simplicity keeps risk mitigated. In software, flexible and simple often compete. You can see this tug of war in all industries. Look at the trend with car manufacturers going to an all-inclusive subscription model that includes the car payment, insurance, taxes and maintenance. You lose the choice of insurance company, where you get your oil changed, etc. On the flip side, you don't have to choose any of those things. You write one check and don't have to worry about anything.

    The fact that in Quick Base you don't/can't write full HTML to control an entire form for example means you don't have to. It means you can deliver high-impact, lower-cost functionality that adds value quickly for users and solves real problems without dealing with the minutia of indexing a database table, worrying about how fields align on a form or any number of other things that come up in software development. For a higher level of control or if you are trying to whitelabel Quick Base, a flexible API is offered where you could build an entire front end in JavaScript or server-side technology and no one has to ever see Quick Base. By doing this, you take on the onus and responsibility of managing it.

    None of the above is meant to be good or bad but rather just discussion points around how this is a little bit more in depth and complicated than it might seem at face value. I actually agree that some of the things you point out would add value to the platform. And while this effort is probably trivial to implement for the Quick Base team of developers, the presentation of the choices, documenting, training and decision making is not. Again, I'm not saying your ideas are bad, shouldn't be implemented or anything like that. I'm just trying to explain that they aren't as simple as they sound.

    Lastly, there is no scenario where Quick Base is going to be able to please everyone so they simply have to go with the numbers. People are always most vocal with criticism.
    • AnnaKelley's avatar
      AnnaKelley
      Qrew Member
      Harrison, do you work for Quick Base? Seems like a lot of excuses that competitors have solved for long ago. There are plenty of other software programs out there that QB competes with that would allow more customization than QB does. The challenge is that you get so deep in QB and it becomes too sticky to walk away. Unfortunately, that creates a conundrum when QB decides that they should have more control of custom branding than we should - especially because, to your point, our end users' experience reflects poorly on QB. In this case, our end users experience branding that is a total clash with branding guidelines and a fuzzy font that makes me feel feelings that Comic Sans makes me feel...that, too, reflects poorly on QB. Just sayin. #downwiththepurple
    • ArchiveUser's avatar
      ArchiveUser
      Qrew Captain
      Anna - Harrison isn't a QBase employee, just a passionate developer that looks out for his clients' best interests. 
    • AnnaKelley's avatar
      AnnaKelley
      Qrew Member
      @Blake - thanks for the clarity. Consider me in the same bucket as him, hence my passion around the customization.
  • ChrisChris's avatar
    ChrisChris
    Qrew Assistant Captain

    I think these are good suggestions. I had to do aesthetic maintenance on those apps I manage where the top border is white. Branding icons we use sitting against a purple background does not look so good.

    As Matt suggested, put your branding at the bottom to be less conspicuous. There's really no valid reason for the glaring QB branding in apps that we're paying for. Let us paying users brand our QB apps to reflect our business to our customers.

    We really do hope Quick Base will reconsider locking us into a purple themed interface and allow us to customize the styles.

  • Last night�s patch eliminated the purple for apps with a custom choice selected for their Header color. The app tabs bar color is now a darker shade of the Header color.
  • You can also put in your own custom logo a table the top left instead of the Quick Base logo.
  • ChrisChris's avatar
    ChrisChris
    Qrew Assistant Captain
    Likely the single most important patch. Eeeexcellent.
    • SamJones3's avatar
      SamJones3
      Quickbase Staff
      Thanks!

      Sam Jones
      QuickBase Product Manager
       
  • >Here is an outline what at a very minimum should be customizable:

    Irrespective of what QuickBase does with the interface you can customize ANYTHING on thier pages using a Service Worker. I am sure they are going to patch the product to address the issues with the GUI that were introduced in the last release but you can always use a Service Worker to achieve exactly the characteristics and behavior you want.

    If anyone want to pursue using Service Workers  feel free to contact me using the information in my profile:

    https://getsatisfaction.com/people/dandiebolt
    • SamJones3's avatar
      SamJones3
      Quickbase Staff
      Oh Dan, you're so committed to your brand. It's so delightful.

      Sam Jones
      QuickBase Product Manager
       
    • MattWinger's avatar
      MattWinger
      Qrew Trainee
      Sam,
      I posted there this morning. Please let me know if I can help in the discussion or design.
      Thanks,
      Matt
  • H>The level of control you are looking for is not common (although, not uncommon) in this sort of "be anything to anyone" platform. Quick Base has to balance a cohesive experience that is reliable with customization desires.
    ...
    H>Lastly, there is no scenario where Quick Base is going to be able to please everyone so they simply have to go with the numbers..

    Those are just bald nay-saying claims formed in a bygone era that pre-dated Service Workers. I guarantee you that you can get QuickBase to do your bidding with script and customization implemented through the use of Service Workers.



    BTW, I am not a QuickBase employee (although I would love to be a Agile Coach at QuuickBase for a day or so - I would really shake things up with all the changes I would implement day one).

    Begone begging for features - Be the QuickBsae change you wish to see in the world using Service Workers.