July 13, 2023 / Icons for Entities, search comments, better markdown import

[antoniokov]

Pick a custom icon for any Entity

Add emoji icons for Entities of tag-like Databases like Category, Status, or Team to make your workspace shine:

Many of you (and us!) have already put emojis in names. Now we’ve made sure the icons look alright throughout Fibery: in relations, search, history, etc.

Icons are especially useful when you use regular Databases in place of Select Fields (e.g. to share Status between Stories and Bugs) or Documents (e.g. to store extra info like Maintainer).

Add Icon Field to a Database to pick icons for its Entities

Search comments

From now on, we index comments in addition to rich-text Fields. An icon indicates that the match occurred in a comment.

One less reason to go to Slack to discuss projects and tasks already present in Fibery, ∞−1 reasons left.

Import markdown from Notion/Fibery

Markdown import now supports both Notion’s and Fibery’s export format. It automatically creates the document structure during import and removes the ids from files and folder names.

Fixed Bugs

We’ve put some love into Space and DB renames:

• Space rename throws error if there are context views in left menu
• Oops error on views (table, timeline, board, calendar, feed, list) in case of renaming Database which is used as source in separate tab
• Oops in left menu if rename both types which are used in Smart Folder
• Oops, error in left menu on twice renaming space if it contains Smart Folder
• Renaming a DB throws an exception for opened context view
• JS in console while rename app with enabled workflow extension
• Values in ‘State’ column hang on 2nd changing database name
• Failed to load view error on the red band if open view while DB rename is in progress

Other areas have gotten some polish as well:

• Import / Export inconsistency
• Auto-focus search bar in emoji picker on open
• Issue with default picture for ‘No image’
• Created in context grid entity does not get linked to parent
• z-index issue for emoji when single/multi select field is created in table column
• Website: existing auth/password sessions should reset when resetting password
• Vertical scroll stops working for embedded views
• Make Plan and Billing page available for admins only
• [csv import] Too many spaces in database name

[njyo]

Great, thanks! Glad to hear we can now add Icons to database entries

[Oshyan]

To avoid polluting my workspace or having to deal with a test workspace (i.e. laziness), can you clarify whether the Notion import also correctly handles database entries with Markdown page contents? Notion has both hierarchical pages (which I assume is what is new and correctly handled in this update) and page contents of databases. The latter was not supported in Fibery, and I’m hoping it too now works with this update. If not, then soon?

[Matt_Blais]

@antoniokov

Icons are especially useful when you use regular Databases in place of Select Fields

Can we also have the ability to select the background color of an entity – Optionally via a Formula – please?

[kalman]

In this release, we focused on improving markdown import, including better support of the Notion markdown export. We specifically worked on the hierarchical structure and removed the notion_id during the import. Since the page content of the database entry is part of the Notion export as a markdown file, the import works smoothly. However, it does not mean that the Notion export will build up the database and the documents. This will be a separate feature, but unfortunately, we don’t have an ETA for that yet.

Next, we’ll tackle the CSV import to merge v1 and v2.

Thanks for your patience and understanding!

[ccollins]

Nice update! I would love the ability to set an icon from a formula. Any chance there are plans for this?
For example, being able to automatically change your task’s icon based on the state would be a huge aid in visualizing what is attached.

And like @Matt_Blais said above, being able to do the same for the background color of your relation links. Allowing both icons/link color to be formula driven would help make Fibery a lot more intuitive

[Minh_Tri_Do_Hang]

you dont know how this make me happy. I have to add manually a lots emoji for each entity i got

[B_Sp]

@antoniokov

From now on, we index comments in addition to rich-text Fields. An icon indicates that the match occurred in a comment.

This is huge, thank you!

@antoniokov

One less reason to go to Slack to discuss projects and tasks already present in Fibery, ∞−1 reasons left.

And you are right, very much a step towards eliminating the need for Slack when you communicate in Fibery. My team already did this and now we can actually find stuff we wrote in comments, great stuff! Wasn’t even holding out hope for getting this anytime soon, thanks so much for prioritizing this!

Would really like to see at some point For Activity Stream, ability to see in chronological order References & Comments as a way to show activity as it happens around an entity, hoping you guys will think that’s useful soon, too.

This doesn’t seem to be yet live in my Fibery instance, but I assume it will work any minute now.

Thanks again for this great news!

[B_Sp]

I am not seeing comments come up in search yet. I have refreshed, logged out, etc. Is it being gradually rolled out?

Thanks!

[Marloes]

@antoniokov

Add emoji icons for Entities of tag-like Databases like Category, Status, or Team to make your workspace shine:

I really love the option to add emoji icons for entities. What would make it even better if we could set a default icon for new entities in a database.

Certain entities in our workspace are given fixed icons to create a visual distinction between different types of data. For example: Template entities gets this icon

As new entities are gradually added (both by us and by the user) it is nice when we don’t have to set which icon we want per entity, but that at database level a certain default can be set when a new entity is created.

Is this something you think would be possible in the near future?

[Matt_Blais]

@Marloes

set a default icon for new entities in a database.

Or even better - the ability to define a Formula that determines the icon
So it can change dynamically according to the entity’s state.

[antoniokov]

@B_Sp

Is it being gradually rolled out?

Yep, should be fine by now. Please ping us via Intercom if comments are still not being indexed.
Note that inline rich-text comments are not indexed yet, only the ones added via the Comments extension.

[antoniokov]

@Marloes

Certain entities in our workspace are given fixed icons to create a visual distinction between different types of data. For example: Template entities gets this icon

@Matt_Blais

Or even better - the ability to define a Formula that determines the icon

We are considering both options, but no immediate plans for now. Thanks for sharing!

[Yuri_BC]

Great to see the new feature allowing emojis for individual entities! However, I think we can go further:

1. Default Emoji for Databases: With more than a few databases, color-coding becomes less effective. A default emoji for each database would be more distinguishable and efficient.
2. Formula-Based Icons: As @Matt_Blais suggested, let’s take it up a notch by allowing a formula to determine the icon. This adds dynamic customization.
3. Inclusivity: This is also a win for colorblind users, making Fibery more accessible.

Current Database Color icon setting:

Current Entity emoji/Icon setting:

Example mockup for the Database emoji/icon setting:

[cannibalflea]

@antoniokov Is it possible for icons to be inherited from a relation?

I was able to create a lookup field that looks up the icon from a relation. However, it doesn’t seem to affect the entity icon itself. This would be quite a helpful tweak by allowing users to define the icons by types and have them propagate through.

[Chr1sG]

Have a look at this:

Set Icon via Formula

I think the problem is that there is a difference between the Icon field and a field with the name Icon. As an analogy, if you create a field called State, you won’t be able to add the Workflow field, since it has to have the name State and that name is now already taken. This doesn’t mean that the field you created will function in the same way as the native workflow field. Similarly, if you define a (formula) field called Icon, you are prohibiting yourself from using the native Icon function…

Lookups effectively behave like formulas, so getting an Icon from another entity will not mean that the resultant field behaves like a ‘native’ icon field.

[cannibalflea]

Thanks for the clarification. It would be nice if there was a way of entities “inheriting” icons (possibly other types of special fields) from another type/database. I particularly like icons because they replace the database type indicator with something more useful without taking more space.

[YvetteLans]

I’ve manually fixed this with a formula.

Based on the relation I show an emoticon.

Example formula:

      If(
          IsEmpty([Intern project]) = false,
        "🚀",
        If(
          IsEmpty(Contact) = false or IsEmpty([Project Traject]) = false,
          "🤩",
          If([Terugkerende taak] = true, "⏩", "")
        )
      )
    )
  )
)

In my workspace a task doesn’t have an icon. So the emoticon is fixed via formula.

But in other places they can actually do change the icon themselves.

When I combine databases in a grid view (like example above) I have the same ‘Type’ formula in each database. In that way the emoticons show nicely in the grid view.

You can then simply use this formula:

And if you want to have a fixed icon for every entity in one database, you can create an automation for when a new entity is created and use this script

const fibery = context.getService('fibery');
for (const entity of args.currentEntities) {
    await fibery.updateEntity(entity.type, entity.id, {
        'icon/icon': `:calendar:`
    });
}

You can also adjust the script if you want to set the icon based on logic.

Hope this helps