Description
Problems
Essentially, the inability to view Entities in a grid format without predefined columns is a problem on its own — and it’s something many users have already requested. This type of View is especially useful in cases where Entities include media files, such as “Employee grids with photos,” “Book grids with covers,” or any scenario where a cover image plays a key role in distinguishing one Entity from another.
Solution
Finally we unblocked by Multiple Files Fields per Database and can add this View.
New "Gallery View" will allow users to display Entities as blocks arranged in a grid format, providing a visually appealing way to manage and view them without the constraints of predefined columns. This view will support cover images from multiple Files Fields, various cover types, like video, PDF, or presentation (🦄 after all updates to Files Field), and all general View functionality: custom sorting, filtering, and batch actions.
Details
Cards menu
Cards menu will inherit it's behaviour from previously updated Database selection menus in other Views, like Timeline or Gantt.
Each added Database has it's own expandable section
User can select cover image from any Files Field in this Database (see Multiple Files Fields per Database )
🦄 In future, we may add the possibility to use not only image files as covers, but also PDF, documents, videos, or presentations
User can customize how this cover will be displayed (if at all): Fill cover image to card width and hide it if empty
"Display" section hold additional global settings, which affect all Databases selected for the Gallery View
Gallery cards
Gallery cards are Entities, which by default have Name and Cover image Fields turned on.
Gallery cards can be in 3 different sizes, that should cover most cases. Card size is flexible, depending on panel width, but with defined min and maxs.
On most screen sizes number of cards per layout is following:
L - 3 cards in a row
M - 4 cards
S - 5 cards
On larger screens, cards amount can be more
On smaller screens – less
Exact min and max width for all layout sizes TBD
Cards, like any other Entities on views support following actions
File preview
By default, we select first Files Field as cover for a DB
If no Files Field is present, we don't show a place for cover and Entity is shown as regular Board card
If File is not uploaded to a certain Entity, we show empty place for instead of cover
❓ If File Field has many files, we show first image file as Cover? (alternative is to show all somehow…)
If Entity has File Field, but no file is uploaded, show Upload button on empty cover placeholder while hovering cursor over it
Figma
See all cases and details in Figma. If anything is missing, ping :zauri-galustov:
https://www.figma.com/design/JRmd7B9p7MPXFojD2fZuD1/PA---Views---Search?node-id=19942-86012&t=3zcIwMkGLKJp4MSG-1