Introducing the Knack Toolkit Library (KTL) in pre-relase - by Cortex R&D Inc

This is cool stuff. Thanks for doing this!

I don’t know the first thing about coding, but your documentation and videos make this easy to understand. I love the Drag and Drop feature. That solves a massive headache for my system. Saves me HOURS of time.

Thank you, Norm!!!

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Norm is literally the best!

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Just gotta say it again. THANK YOU NORM!!!

The keywords are making my apps much better. It’s not about overcoming limitations. It’s helping me build stuff that I never thought of in the first place. COOL.

Last week I used the _vrd keyword to show a record’s details on the same page. Never knew it was a limitation because I’d never thought of it. But love it.

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I completely agree. This has changed what’s possible in Knack and changed the way we build our app.

Adding styles and classes to views make displaying views the way you want, so much easier.

Another one which is great is _cmr no waiting for a modal to submit. It closes and refreshes the background views.

If you are into coding he has some great functions that are available to use and you can create your own keywords. For instance using his function waitSelector means that you can run code primarily on view renders rather than scene renders.

Craig

Hi

I have been on the sideline for quite a while not wanting to use the KTL kit, since I am afraid of all the What if’s

What if I make an app that so dependent on the functionality in the KTL and then it stops being supported or changes.

So I stick to “native” Knack but there are som many features from KTL kit that I hoped would be implemented into the Knack platform.

Can someone make an risk assesment to what using KTL could mean?

Hi @Simon,

Your concerns are valid and shared by many. I recommend watching Carl Holmes’ video addressing these points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-q6JbkTyU

To summarize the key risk mitigation factors:

  1. Morbern’s substantial investment and reliance on KTL for core operations ensure its long-term viability.
  2. We maintain open communication with Knack’s development team to prevent breaking changes.
  3. Since 2019, KTL has not caused any major outages. Minor issues have been quickly resolved.
  4. Our Dev and Beta testing phases significantly reduce the risk of unexpected problems.
  5. We’ve established a succession plan for continued development and support post-retirement.

I also invite you to check out our case studies at https://ctrnd.com/en/case-studies/ to see real-world applications and benefits of KTL.

These factors should alleviate your “what-ifs” and encourage you to explore KTL’s powerful features. Many users find it indispensable once they start.

Ready to welcome you to the KTL community!

Best regards,
Normand

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Hi @Simon

We also had these concerns before we started to use the KTL. We now use it so extensively that it would ruin our app if it stopped being used. We feel that the gains are a lot compared to the risk’s. Norm has been very open about this and as he said please watch @CarlHolmes video to allay your fears.

I hope you give it a go as it will change the way you use Knack in so many ways.

Craig

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I was definitely in the same space and resisted the allure of KTL for more than a year. For me it was a lack of understanding and fear of the unknown. Working with @NormandDefayette_CortexRD and @CSWinnall has been a life changing experience with regards to my Knack building.

As you say, there are so many great features in KTL which extend Knacks functionality. Only today Normand has released a new keyword for me to overcome an issue with complex date/time fields.

It really has opened up a whole new world of possibilities and I’m only using the basic keywords. I’ve always been a native Knack builder until I was introduced to Integromat (Make) in 2018 at London Knackcon. KTL is very similar in that it has opened my horizons even further. Oh, plus given me two great new relationships with some very clever individuals. :technologist: :woman_technologist:

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Hi Norm,
Is it possible to use the bulk copy to copy records from one table to another?
Thanks

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Hi @Brian1,

That would be great, I admit. But it’s not currently feasible.
But there’s the _cpyfrom keyword that does that.

Check it out, maybe it’ll do what you want.

Norm

Sounds good, thank you. I was just looking for a shortcut to what I currently do. For the life of me I can’t figure out how to get selected check boxes sent to make as a webhook for processing.

Normand,
Any chance you or Carl Holmes could do a video on _cpyfrom?

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I’ve not used that feature yet. If @NormandDefayette_CortexRD can show me I’ll do a video :+1:

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Yes Carl, we should do one together actually - if that sounds like a good idea.

The initial idea behind this keyword was to create surveys in Knack.

You can create a survey, add questions to it, then when the user selects that survey, all questions are copied automatically to a grid connected to his account, and he can answer them.

But it can do a lot more.

Let’s plan this soon,
Norm

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Yes @NormandDefayette_CortexRD - I’m up for learning how it works :+1:
Just sent you a Slack message to see if we can connect. :phone:

@NormandDefayette_CortexRD and @CarlHolmes
This sounds like it could do templates.
For example, I have a form that Creates a new project and record rules works to get the project setup correctly, but there are a number of Child Records that go with each project that would be very useful to copy from a Template Project.

Norm, did I understand that correctly?

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Hi Guys,

Is it possible to use the bulk edit function associated with an edit form where the user will be able to choose the options to be copy to the selected records? I understand that the current bulk edit function will work by selecting one or more cell record from one of the records line, but sometimes the information to be copied is not in the same result and this will limit the possibilities in my case.

Does anyone have a workaround for that?

Thanks!

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Hi @Erik,

I think you have a cool use case. This keyword could be used to do the template copy as you said. But I’m not 100% sure how to do it. Currently, for the Add mode to be triggered, the destination grid (where the _cpyfrom keyword is located) needs to be empty. This is the prevent multiple runs in a loop and avoid duplicate records.

So, you may have to find a clever trick to get both sets of records added to the final grid.

Maybe use a two steps process in separate pages, or two grids of the same source, with two different keywords.

The other option would be to add a new parameter to indicate that the Add mode doesn’t require an empty grid to work. Just copy blindly from the source grid, whatever the outcome is.

Think about this and let me know what you think,
Norm

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Hi @Guilherme,

Currently, this is not possible.

I think the best would be for you to open a Discussion in the GitHub page here: cortexrd/Knack-Toolkit-Library · Discussions · GitHub

Give us a clear example, step by step with screen grabs so we can fully understand what your use case is.

Cheers,
Norm

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Hey @NormandDefayette_CortexRD
My thought before you responded was trying to set up a multipage process.
If I could see it in use, I might have more ideas.
I’ll see if I can play around with it this weekend.

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