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Launch HN: Glide (YC W19) – Mobile Apps from Google Sheets

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Glide (YC W19) – Mobile Apps from Google Sheets

#21

Post by huangc10 »

Hi, this is indeed really cool. Just a couple of questions:

1) I'm not really understanding how the apps are shared? Ex. when a user scans the QR code or opens the glide app link sent to them, do the apps open in a browser from the phone? The UI shown on the website don't seem to have a URL bar or browser navigation so I'm a little confused as to what actually happens...

2) I find that one of the harder parts of developing an app is getting the App Store/Google Play Store account/license/certificates/submission process. Do you guys have plans to streamline this with tools such as Fastlane? Maybe a developer portal to easily import this to App Store Connect or Google Play Console?

Re: Launch HN: Glide (YC W19) – Mobile Apps from Google Sheets

#22

Post by dvdsgl »

huangc10 wrote: post #21

Hi, this is indeed really cool. Just a couple of questions: 1) I'm not really understanding how the apps are shared? Ex. when a user scans the QR code or opens the glide app link sent to them, do the apps open in a browser from the phone? The UI shown on the website don't seem to have a URL bar or browser navigation so I'm a little confused as to what actually happens... 2) I find that one of the harder parts of deve…

Thanks!

Glide apps are first and foremost PWAs. We're rolling out shortlink support soon, so your app would be something like mycoolapp.glideapp.io. Android will prompt you to add the app to your homescreen, and on iOS we show a similar prompt. You can pay for a custom domain.

On our paid plan, we can export native builds for you to publish to app stores. Currently we have a React Native implementation of Glide that runs the app natively, rather than wrapped.

Yes, we are looking into streamlining the store publishing process in any way we can, and fastlane will come in handy. We've been surprised by how many users have been satisfied with PWAs so far, though.

Re: Launch HN: Glide (YC W19) – Mobile Apps from Google Sheets

#24

Post by pdxandi »

Just an FYI that I'm currently getting an error after signing up.

When I click "New App," there's a modal popup that says, "In order to select an item from your online storage, please sign in." I click "Sign in" and another popup opens and closed immediately. I click it again and the same thing happens, but then the center modal is replaced with, "There was an error! Details: The feature you requested is currently unavailable. Please try again later."

Re: Launch HN: Glide (YC W19) – Mobile Apps from Google Sheets

#25

Post by dvdsgl »

pdxandi wrote: post #24

Just an FYI that I'm currently getting an error after signing up. When I click "New App," there's a modal popup that says, "In order to select an item from your online storage, please sign in." I click "Sign in" and another popup opens and closed immediately. I click it again and the same thing happens, but then the center modal is replaced with, "There was an error! Details: The feature you requested is currently un…

I'm sorry, but there are two seemingly redundant popups in our sign-up process right now. You have to auth via Google twice–once to sign up, and once to authorize Google Drive. This should be fixed this week.

Re: Launch HN: Glide (YC W19) – Mobile Apps from Google Sheets

#26

Post by ezez »

mark-probst wrote: post #10
ezez wrote: post #9

I'm having fun with it, but I sure can't seem to change anything to do with aesthetics - font colours, font size etc? Is this possible or on the roadmap? Otherwise, I'm impressed by the quality of the PWA (thought it might be React Native based at first) and the "it just works" factor.

Thank you! We will add more options to customize the look of the apps. It's important to us not to overload users with fine-grained controls that require design expertise to get good-looking results, though.

That's an interesting point. As an app developer myself (so maybe not the target audience) I'd love to be able to change some aspects of it, even if it made things look "bad" as it would be a part of the fun/identity of the app. I'm not asking to adjust layout per-se (as that's more complex), but simply to manipulate fonts/colours etc. would be quite fun :)

Anyways, glad it's on the roadmap! I'll keep an eye on it.

Re: Launch HN: Glide (YC W19) – Mobile Apps from Google Sheets

#28

Post by dvdsgl »

elamje wrote: post #27

Hey, this might be a dumb question, but how is image data stored and accessed? The example shows images, but I wasn't sure where that's being hosted. Google Drive?

Right now images are just raw URLs. We need to do some work to make this simpler!

Re: Launch HN: Glide (YC W19) – Mobile Apps from Google Sheets

#29

Post by dvdsgl »

pdxandi wrote: post #23

Congrats on the launch! I like the look and feel of the dashboard and am wondering if you mind sharing the stack of the front-end. Are you using a UI kit? It seems like Material Design but it feels lighter.

Thank you! We're building on React and TypeScript. All of the design and components are custom, we're glad you like it :D
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