What do you want to be added in Sets/Collections v2?

Talk
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1

We got some great news in the last town hall which included some items on the roadmap of Anytype; mainly the release of API and the subject of this post, Sets/Collection 2.0.

I thought it would be helpful for the community and the devs to come together in shaping the future experience of sets/collection and sharing what they want to see in the future releases.

Personally, the main items I would like to be added are:

  1. Multi-Dimensional relations
  2. Timeline view for the sets
  3. wrap columns feature
  4. The ability to group items together in sets based on a relation similar to Notion
  5. Relation and Rollup feature of Notion5.
  6. Buttons with the ability to perform action in Sets (again similar to Notion)
  7. background of inline sets being transparent, so that we can put them inside “callouts”
  8. The ability to hide the source set/collection name when using inline.
  9. Formulas9.
  10. The option to change the size of the cards in gallery view
  11. The option to resize the image shown in the cards in gallery view + reposition the image for better visibility
  12. The option to choose the “icon” of the object as the thumbnail of the cards in gallery view

That’s about for me. How about you?

2

My big ones are:

  • Grouping
  • Preview of objects’ content in the gallery view (and maybe kanban view too), like in Capacities. It makes everything feel much more accessible when you can easily see what’s inside the objects
  • Hide or change the title for inline
  • Saved views (that I can reuse elsewhere) - maybe even views as objects
  • Ability to freeze the top row and 1st column when scrolling in table view
  • Option to wrap text so it shows all of the text for longer items
  • More options for number types - e.g. currencies / percentages etc.
  • A slider / progress bar relation type
  • Better batch editing (e.g. at the moment, if you add a tag to multiple objects, it deletes all the preexisting tags)
3

I would like to mention that rollups/formulas are not coming this year to Anytype, as stated by Anton in this topic:

I would like the see the following:

  1. Feature parity with mobile apps (meaning all desktop features availible on mobile)
  2. Grouping
  3. Limit the amount of objects shown in an inline set
  4. Footer for sets with options to sum, average, etc for each relation
  5. Footer and header frozen from scrolling
  6. More cover/tumbnail options like; selecting any relation that has an image or first image in object, place cover left or right of a card, choose round/square image for card, etc
  7. Better number relations (currency, percentage, rond-off)
  8. More inline set controls (hide header, custom views. etc)
  9. More than one date relation in a calender view so I can see the release date relation for my movies in the same calendar that shows the end date of my tasks (for example)
4

I would prefer easier ways to add items to a Collection. The perfect solution would be a “Parent Collection” relation that I can favorite on any object. Filling this in would add the object to the specified Collection. This way, I can easily see which Collection the item is in without hunting for this information in the links, and I can quickly change it without fumbling with linking.

This is how I manage my Projects currently, but it would be nicer if those Projects could be Collections (less faffing about with setting up Sets)

5

can you elaborate on this a bit more? I didn’t get what you mean by it.

that’s a good one

I forgot to add this one to my list :sweat_smile:

Yeah that definitely comes in handy

6

You are right, he did mention it by I wanted to list all my wishlist in one place to share with the community and see theirs as well.

Having inline sets on mobile is a big miss as of right now.

I believe it has a default number before it hides the rest behind “show more” toggle but having more granular control is arguably better :+1:.

7

I might have got a bit carried away with that one but basically, it feels like a chore sometimes setting up a new view each time - e.g. choosing the relations, setting column widths, adding filters and sorts etc. Especially when you’ve set up the same general view multiple times already. It could also be template views or default views. When I said views as objects, I meant have a list of views you’ve created in the past that you can add again anywhere (and tag them and see creation dates etc - like you can with other objects)

8

you mean across different sets right? :thinking:

I think some of what you want can be tackled with the list of default relations for every type of objects, so that i will show up on sets of that particular object by default.

9

Database as simple table!

To start with, think about the possibility of joining simple tables and collections.
In both cases, we have columns/relations and rows/elements.
Unfortunately, collections are too heavy for a simple table, and simple tables are too basic…
You can see it in the FR from both of them!

On the collection side, we “just” need :

  • be able to hide all options (title, views, especially if there’s only one, the “+” for adding relationships, etc.)
  • be able to edit it quickly like a table (Excel, Notion, etc…)
  • options for data formatting (centering text, colors, etc.)
  • no obligation to display the “name” relation
  • a “rich text” or “block” relation for multiple lines of formatted text, images, checkboxes, etc.
  • … and in fact, Simple table in Anytype are so basic that we already have something similar (and better because data is typed, can be sorted, etc). Including this “block relation” because we can’t do we can’t do much with the simples tables at the moment.
    image
    image1441×513 24.1 KB

Et voilà! :victory_hand:
Next, you’ll need to include all the features that are sorely lacking on today’s simple tables (such as image integration).

The only limit I can see is cell merging. But we’re so far from that anyway!

Few tools allow for this, and yet in my opinion it would be a huge breakthrough that would enable so many things to be done, and would be a real asset!

If I really can’t convince the team, here’s what it would take for the collections (and yes, it’s partly in line with the things mentioned here)

Collection 2.0 without simple table

I haven’t talked about relation, like this problem of number format (adding decoration like degrees or other symbols, numerical format, etc.) or date, two relations that generate a lot of FR, because it’s more an evolution of relationships. Another subject :wink:

11

I thought that what you talked about could simply be called “Set/Collection templates”, like for the single types.

12

Solid list! Mine are:

  • Grouping
  • Nesting (still hoping!)
  • Auto-link option for Sets
  • Gallery View aspect ratios and covers
  • Calculate total, for starters
  • Desktop features in mobile
  • Rename locked relations like “Name” and “Object type”
  • Kanban fixes
    • entries reappearing instead of creating a new column for every tag combination
    • group based on object

I missed two thirds of the Town-Hall, though. Still waiting for the replay.

13

Yeah something like that. I suppose it just feels repetitive creating them so any way you can make it easier / quicker would be great

14

can you elaborate on this a bit more?

15

Oh, I wasn’t clear. I meant for objects to auto-link to source set in Graph View. Needs to be optional of course. IIRC this is planned already.

16

It is?

17

I know what I mean now. Okay, so I am writing a large comedy series of books (like the Simpsons but in book format). I use Anytype to manage my ideas, and I could have joke ideas, episode ideas, character ideas, marketing ideas etc. Loads of them. I have an object type ‘Idea’ and a ‘Set’ which is basically a database of all the ideas. If I have an idea, I just create a new idea object and tag it / categorize it as I see fit.

So, if I’m writing an episode, I want an inline set of all the ideas that might relate to that episode (on a page dedicated to that episode). The layouts, filters, sorts and displayed relations for this inline set is different to the layouts, filters, sorts and displayed relations I have in my original set.

However, when I insert an inline set, it uses the same layouts, filters, sorts and displayed relations as the original set, so I have to change it all so it shows only those ideas related to that episode, and so it displays them how I like them to be displayed, in the layouts I want to use. That is fine when it’s once, but I have multiple episodes, so I need to redo this work every time. And then if I want to do the same for a character, or for marketing ideas (or a subsection of marketing e.g. ideas about Facebook ads), then I need to always start from scratch every time. (or at least, start with however the original set is setup).

If I had saved views (or saved inline sets), I could just choose a view I have used in the past, and it would load with all the same layouts, filters, relations etc. For example, for subsets of marketing ideas, perhaps I will always want a table layout filtered a certain way with certain relations, in a certain order. I might also always want a kanban layout, and a calendar layout or whatever, all set up a certain way. (Btw, when I use the term ‘view’ I mean multiple different layouts of the same inline set.)

So let’s say I have a page for Facebook ads, on this page, I might have notes and other info written on the page and I might want an inline set showing an up-to-date view (multiple layouts) of my Facebook ad ideas. I might then start doing Pinterest ads, and want more or less the same thing as the Facebook ads. I could duplicate the Facebook page, but maybe I have already started adding notes and other info to the Pinterest page, in that case, I only want to duplicate the inline set (and how it’s set up).

It can be tedious and repetitive setting up all the different layouts, and settings for each layout, each time. For example, I might adjust the columns widths in a table, the filters, the sorts, the displayed relations, the order they are displayed in etc. I might also have a Kanban view set up a certain way, or gallery view where I have changed the card size, added a different filter etc. There is a lot of stuff you can fiddle about with and it all takes time.

When I said you could even have Views as Objects, I meant views as in ‘saved Inline sets’. So I could have my saved ‘views’ in a table (or a kanban or whatever), I could tag them and date them etc. That way, it would be easy to organize and reuse the saved views / inline sets.

Having saved inline sets as objects is perhaps getting a little carried away, but the concept of being able to reuse inline sets is what I meant. With all the same layouts and settings etc.

19

It should be possible when they merge sets and collections. I just don’t know the specifics or their ETA.

20

Well… we will see. Personally think it is a mistake, but maybe I am wrong.

21

I use Anytype to organize my research and for task management, so the set/collection merging is super important to me. In order of priority, these are the main things I’m looking forward to:

  1. Quick custom search
  2. Subtasks (children objects) can be shown/hidden in grid view
  3. Mobile support for inline collections/sets
  4. Grouping
  5. Wrap column
22
  • Manual Set Sort (BIGGEST ONE). Sets should have the ability to move objects in the set freely if there is no filter applied. New items added to the set should be placed at the bottom or the top.
  • Background object coloring. So in something like a grid view, I should be able to set the color of the background of the object. This helps cut down in information I need in the table because if I wanted to have lets say a high priority task, I could just color the background red instead. It would be nice to have this synced up with a relation’s color, like priority. So if I choose high priority, it automatically colors the background of the grid item red.
  • The ability to push the view configuration to embedded view. So if I decide to change a filter setting in one specific view, I can select which views will copy the update instead of manually going to all embedded collections and doing it myself.
    Those are my biggest three things related exclusively to sets and collections.