August Development Update

[scott]

Text Blaze

Macintosh Application (Beta)

We've launched a beta version of our Macintosh Desktop Application. Now, Mac users can enjoy Text Blaze outside of Chrome, just like our Windows users have been able to with our Windows Desktop Application beta.

If you just need Text Blaze in Chrome, our Chrome extension is still the best choice. But if you're keen on using Text Blaze in other desktop applications, our Desktop apps are here for you.

Fancy being a Beta tester for our Macintosh Desktop app? Just let us know at support@blaze.today.

Improved Command Editing in the Sidebar

We're continuing the work improving nested command chip editing that we highlighted in our update last month. Now, the command editing sidebar will show nested chips directly in the sidebar fields.

Click on a chip in the sidebar, and voila! The sidebar switches to editing that chip. Want to go back to editing the parent chip? Just click the parent in the sidebar title.

Data Blaze

New Count Field Type

Check out the new Count Field! It lets you count the number of links in a LinkRow Field with ease. For instance, here we are using it to count the number of products a user has selected:

Sure, you could do this with a formula before, but the new Count Field type makes it a breeze.

New Rollup Field Type

Meet the new Rollup Field! It lets you aggregate fields from the rows in a LinkRow Field easily.

In the image below, the column/field called Products is a LinkRow field. So, Clean Pro, Hyper Z, and Drive X are product names, each with their own row in another table. And each of those rows has a column/field for the product cost.

Total Cost is a Rollup field that reads the product cost values for the chosen products, and sums them up. Average Price gives the average of those values.

There are other functions to explore, such as finding the maximum value of a list. Dive in, explore, and as always, have fun!

Video of the month

Don't miss this awesome new video on how to use the improved AI Write to create snippets.

Quickly generate reusable snippets & templates with Blaze AI

And remember...

If you're ever in a pickle, feel free to post in our Question and Answer community forums. And if there's something you'd love to see in Text Blaze or Data Blaze, please suggest it in the Features Ideas section. We're always here to lend a hand!

[Pratik_Shah]

That's great updates!

[RainbowBrite]

How do we access the version for Mac?

[Gaurang_Tandon]

Hi @RainbowBrite, Please email us at support@blaze.today so we can set up access for you.

Best,
Gaurang

[Gilles_Gary]

Stille waiting for the Android App of TextBlaze

[usman]

Waiting for Android App of TextBlaze

[Brad_Hedinger]

@scott Hey Scott. I have been experiencing some strange issues since this update, related to the improved command editor. Seems that now, spaces between comma-separated list items breaks the formula.

Example:

That is how many of my lists used to be written because the list items originated in Excel after a bunch of text-to-column formatting was done. Granted, I know those varying space lengths are messy behind the scenes, but the formula had been performing flawlessly. However, now I get this error message:

I used Blaze AI to troubleshoot the issue and voila! Removing all those spaces was the fix! Blaze AI rewrote the formula as follows and it works perfectly now.

[Gaurang_Tandon]

Hey Brad, I just tried it and it is working fine for me. Do you mind sharing the plaintext version of the full command that is giving the error?

[Brad_Hedinger]

name=onlinemaster1; values={=sort([" ",    "Business Intelligence Master of Science",    "Game Design Master of Science",    "Innovation and Entrepreneurship Master of Science",       "Entertainment Business Master of Science with Sports Management Track",    "Instructional Design and Technology Master of Science",    "Media Design Master of Fine Arts",   "Public Relations Master of Arts", "Computer Science Master of Science", "Digital Marketing Master of Science", "Entertainment Business Master of Science",  "New Media Journalism Master of Arts"], (a, b) -> comparestrings(a, b))}; trim=left; cols=50}

[Gaurang_Tandon]

Hi Brad, I just tested and it is actually working fine for me:

I am not sure how that is possible, but do you have something else in your snippet that is causing the issue?

[Brad_Hedinger]

Strange indeed @Gaurang_Tandon. I have analyzed this extensively. I am emailing you a text file to look at because whenever I paste the formulas in here, the spacing is auto-corrected. When you look at the text file, notice the structures are identical and each has exactly 466 characters (without spaces), but only the first group will validate.