June 22, 2023 / View icons, prettier Formulas, batch markdown import

[antoniokov]

View icons

We’ve noticed that Fibery Creators (ourselves included) often put emojis at the start of View names. This way a View is easier to spot in the left menu and search. Also, relevant emojis are fun!

Now we make one step further — and introduce proper icons for Views. Pick between vibrant emojis and calmer icons and make your workspace shine.

This is part of a bigger theme of making Fibery more pleasant to use. We have always focused on raw power first, so now we are correcting for aesthetics and usability.

Prettier Formulas

Speaking of pretty things, we’ve just introduced Formula formatting. Longer Formulas are no longer just lumps of text, but rather logically indented statements.

Markdown import via a zip file

As the next step in import from markdown, you can import multiple markdown files structured within folders compressed in a zip file.

Fixed Bugs

• Wrong URL is getting opened when not prefixed with https://
• Internal links open in a wrong way
• Changing header does not work: once one type of header is selected, changing to another does not get applied
• Bad headers alignment on Import page
• It’s impossible to change callout color and icon in full-add form
• Import from ClickUp
  • Set Show empty Field values off by default on ClickUp board view
  • List view issues
  • Board View issues

[Sarah_Arminta]

I love the view icons! I’ve already switched most of mine over lol. A nice related next step for me would being able to choose icons for databases. Then you could display a mini version for inline entities

[Matt_Blais]

@antoniokov

We have always focused on raw power first, so now we are correcting for aesthetics and usability.

@antoniokov

Speaking of pretty things, we’ve just introduced Formula formatting.

OMG you totally made my day

[Oshyan]

@antoniokov

This is part of a bigger theme of making Fibery more pleasant to use. We have always focused on raw power first, so now we are correcting for aesthetics and usability.

This is great to hear! It makes a bigger difference than we’d like to think. In fact I think it is a Notion superpower.

I am also, of course, super happy about bulk Markdown import. Off to test!

[aoe]

@Sarah_Arminta

A nice related next step for me would being able to choose icons for databases.

+1 on this.

To expand on this, it would also be nice if entities other than documents/views could have icons.
E.g. each Task or Project entity could have its own icon as well.

[YvetteLans]

@Sarah_Arminta

I love the view icons! I’ve already switched most of mine over lol. A nice related next step for me would being able to choose icons for databases. Then you could display a mini version for inline entities

Yes this would be so nice! We’ve made an internal Wiki database in our customers workspaces because we have more flexibility with database entities then with documents.

We often link to Wiki entities. Would be so great if then also icons will show

@Matt_Blais

@antoniokov

We have always focused on raw power first, so now we are correcting for aesthetics and usability.

@antoniokov

Speaking of pretty things, we’ve just introduced Formula formatting.

OMG you totally made my day

+1

Currently we can’t wait until the new table grid is released since we can then clean up a lot of spaces. But in the meantime these releases makes us really, really happy

@antoniokov

As the next step in import from markdown, you can import multiple markdown files structured within folders compressed in a zip file.

Awesome!

[ccollins]

@aoe

To expand on this, it would also be nice if entities other than documents/views could have icons.

Which could then open up the opportunity for board view images from icons when you don’t have files

[ccollins]

Quick feedback: icon/emoji selections aren’t reflecting in the to-many block views when not in full screen

[njyo]

Nice! Love the new icons and ability to set emojis, will clean up my space immediately
Also, nice to have the formulae auto-formatted!

As you are at making things nicer and easier to use, I still have three main navigational gripes:

Automatically List Nested Pages and Views

Hi Fibery team, Some of our folks still struggle with the need to hover an item on the left side to see if there are sub-items. Even when clicking an item, the page does not automatically show that there are child pages, views, forms, etc. The guessing game: Which of these have sub-items, and which don’t? [2023-06-23 at 13.23] Hidden affordances are a bad design pattern. So I suggest: Indicate in this tree, if something has child views. This could be a caret on the right of the entry, or s…

Anyway, nice work. Love the polish being added

[njyo]

PS: I noticed that Pages (which were scrapped), had Page Descriptions, which the Documents do not have. Can we please get those for documents as well? I find myself adding a callout at the top of a document so often, which a small description would actually solve. Thanks!

[mbs]

beautiful! as we get to use fibery more and more everyday, these things make all the difference

[njyo]

Hi @antoniokov, just noticed some smaller refinements for the View Icons:

1. It would help the recognition and learning id the View Icon is also shown in the browser tab
2. The spacing in the left-menu is still iffy for some icons (unlike on the actual view).

Thanks!

[antoniokov]

@aoe

To expand on this, it would also be nice if entities other than documents/views could have icons.
E.g. each Task or Project entity could have its own icon as well.

Here we go: July 13, 2023 / Icons for Entities, search comments, better markdown import

[antoniokov]

@njyo

It would help the recognition and learning id the View Icon is also shown in the browser tab

Thanks, this one is on our radar.

@njyo

The spacing in the left-menu is still iffy for some icons (unlike on the actual view).

Would you mind sharing your browser and OS, please? We’ve checked on Mac and Windows on Chrome and Firefox, looks fine:

[njyo]

Hi @antoniokov!

Glad to hear that the tab title is on the radar!

For the emoji, it seems like there was some refinement done, because now it does not look as jarring anymore:

Though the space between a squared emoji like and an M seems still a tad narrow to me… not only, but especially when compared to the default icons, the emoji still use a slightly different spacing.

But the former I know is nitpicking, the default icons I hope will be refined together with this

Automatically List Nested Pages and Views

Hi Fibery team, Some of our folks still struggle with the need to hover an item on the left side to see if there are sub-items. Even when clicking an item, the page does not automatically show that there are child pages, views, forms, etc. The guessing game: Which of these have sub-items, and which don’t? [2023-06-23 at 13.23] Hidden affordances are a bad design pattern. So I suggest: Indicate in this tree, if something has child views. This could be a caret on the right of the entry, or s…

[Yuri_BC]

@antoniokov

As the next step in import from markdown , you can import multiple markdown files structured within folders compressed in a zip file.

This is a great step forward, thanks! I was able to import all my chatgpt conversations which were stored as markdown files in folders with the date of the conversations. Fibery imported them as nested Fibery Docs.

Since we don’t use Fibery Docs, I need to convert them to our Page entity type. I have not found yet how to efficiently batch-convert this whole list (500 conversations in many date folders) keeping the structure, or even without the structure, as long as they are converted to an entity.

I think that entities need to have the first priority, not Fibery Docs in any app or feature that is assumed to be a generic solution like importing. Would you agree?