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All cheat-sheets

alphaPlan · Future of Mobile Development · Cheat-sheet 01

No-code foundations

Understand what no-code means, find your way around the Adalo editor, and structure a database with collections, properties, records and relationships.

Ideas to remember

  1. 01No-code platforms are visual tools where you drag and drop the pieces of an app, connect them together, and get a working web or mobile app.
  2. 02Almost everything in Adalo comes down to three ideas: components you see on a screen, actions that happen when someone uses them, and the database where information lives.
  3. 03Start any app with three questions in order: which screens do I need, what should each screen do, and what data does it need to show or save.
  4. 04A collection is one spreadsheet of one kind of thing, a property is a column, a record is a row, and a relationship links two collections.
  5. 05The Users collection is provided by Adalo and cannot be deleted; a property's type, such as Text, Date or Relationship, decides what the app can do with it later.
  6. 06Say a relationship out loud from both directions: one side single and the other many is one-to-many; both sides many is many-to-many.

Words

Canvas
The large workspace in the middle where you lay out the screens; you scroll and zoom around it like a map.
Add Panel
Opens from the plus button; this is where you pick components and new screens to drop onto the Canvas.
Preview and Share
Preview runs the app in the browser so you can test it; Share gives a link for someone without an Adalo account.
Relationship
A property type that links to another collection and creates a property on both sides.
one-to-many
One leader leads many trips; one trip has one leader.
many-to-many
One trip has many members; one member joins many trips.

Do this

  • Open a blank app and click through Screens, Database, Branding and Settings until you know where each one lives.
  • Name both sides of every relationship straight away, such as Leader on Trips and Trips Led on Users.
  • Put something unique and readable in the first property of a collection, like the trip title, because Adalo uses it as the record's label everywhere.
  • Add a few records by hand and set a leader on each trip; the empty Leader dropdown fills up once users exist.
  • Set the app's colours once in Branding so every component using them updates together.

Watch out

  • There is no true one-to-one relationship in Adalo; use one-to-many and simply ignore the many side.
  • Leaving the first property blank breaks the label Adalo shows for that record, and CSV imports only match relationships on that label.
  • Choose the property type carefully: a Date can be sorted and compared, but a piece of text cannot be treated as a day on the calendar.

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