The current Entity Views (Tabs) Feature is in my opinion not only underdeveloped but also missing the point, such that I decided not to use it any more. There are too many drawbacks in the tabs essentially hardcoded for each database, they don’t behave like entities cannot be filtered or hidden based on permissions, etc.
I have the following proposal:
- Replace the Entity Views Tabs with a relationship collection field.
- Add a new field display mode: horizontal Tab List
Benefits:
- You can either use database-wide Tabs or parent-specific Tabs
- Tabs can be filtered, sorted, with conditions.
- Tabs can be shown or hidden based on access permissions
In the example below, I show a collection field 'EntityViews that are entities of a new database ‘EntityView’.
As an additional UI modification I propose to place the Entity View entities under the parent entity Name header, since that is where they most logically belong. Having them above the Name, has caused big confusion with my coworkers.
It would be interesting to understand more about the problems/drawbacks, rather than focussing on any specific solution.
Reading between the lines somewhat, I can detect the following issues:
- tabs cannot be hidden/shown per user (a.k.a. permissions)*
- you would prefer tabs to be above the Name field
What else is there?
*with respect to this specific problem, are you hoping to use tabs to implement a kind of field-level permissions control (a user can’t see fields on tabs they don’t have access to)? If so, you need to consider the possibility that a user could create a data view in their Personal space which allows them to visualise data in fields that are not shown on entity view.
This is something that I’ve wanted, but not for the purpose of disallowing access to certain fields. Rather, it would help streamline the workflow for less tech-savvy users to not have to worry about views or fields that are irrelevant to them. The only way that I’m aware of to get to this behavior is to more-or-less duplicate databases, just with minor differences to fields and views. This adds quite a bit of complexity (especially if there are automations) and doesn’t seem to he worth the effort.
Are you saying that the current implementation of multiple entity views (aka tabs) is bad enough that you’d prefer to implement multiple databases (rather than just advising users to switch to the tab that best suits their needs)?
No, I’m saying the multiple database option is not worth the effort. And I ultimately decided not to do it. But I am also saying the current implementation is disruptive enough that I seriously considered the multiple database option.
Before I share feedback on this feature, let’s see what we need:
Requirements for co-research, testing and analysis of a bigger feature
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This Discourse forum is limited for organizing ideas and feedback in a structured way, and I would wish that actually a shared fibery space would be made available for more organized co-research can happen between the team and fibery users. Maybe this has been considered by the team already?
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If this Discourse forum is used, I suggest that a bigger feature like this needs to have a parent topic, that can contain child topics, to organize discussions about the same feature. That also prevents duplication by users, and gives better structured overview of the efforts. Has the team considered such better structure and usage of the Discourse forum?
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In what way could AI be leveraged to create a more effective support of and processing of user input for Fibery features?
There was a load of discussion about entity view over many months, that was fed into the decision-making that led to the current entity view design. There may not be much appetite to re-open these topics 
This is the Fibery community. Anyone is welcome to contribute - the structure and usage is largely determined by the community members who contribute (i.e. you and others) 
We use AI heavily in managing feature development, including processing feedback (from this community, and from other sources).
But I can say, we are not currently focussing on significant changes/improvements to entity view, but it’s possible that there might be some tweaks that will make life easier.
