Is Mobile layout maintained? I can't get it to seamlessly work

App Building
1

Hi there,

I was editing a previous Retool app and when I checked it on mobile it was still displaying the old version - as if I didn't modify anything. After some confusion, I realized that Retool has two different layouts: one for Desktop and one for Mobile. I was modifying the Desktop layout, and I had forgotten there was a Mobile one too (been a few months). I wish the changes reflected automatically, but I then went back to try to get it working again on Mobile.

  1. First problem was that when I switched the desktop component to be visible in Mobile it was empty. The problem was that each individual "sub-component" had to be made visible on Mobile. Similar "bug" was reported here: [BUG] Modules layout is completely broken on mobile - #3 by jSims (this post helped to figure out the issue)

  2. I then tried to quickly mark everything to Mobile, but I kept getting an error that containers were intersecting. OK, I started moving each container I added to the bottom. The idea was that Retool will keep adding components to the top, then I move them to bottom to satisfy Retool intersection errors, and then rearrange them when I'm all done. This is displayed in the first part of the video.

  3. Step (2) kind-of worked, but then "sub-components" INSIDE the "container" were also throwing errors when I tried to mark them as Mobile. I can't(?) easily move "sub-components" inside a "container" to the bottom because Retool automatically sizes the container. This is displayed in the second part of the video.

At that point I gave up. Right now my current plan is to just resize the desktop layout to be small enough for Mobile.

Am I doing something wrong? Is there any way I can transfer/copy all the Desktop layout to Mobile? Without having to click on every container and every sub-component? Where then clicking on every container and every sub-component will each throw intersection errors. Mobile layout for me right now is a recursive intersection error throwing experience :grin: Thank you in advance, Retool is a great product!

Video link: Dropbox - retool_mobile_layout_experience_small.mov - Simplify your life

2

Hi @kgaidis,

Thanks so much for sharing this detailed feedback!

Agreed that it would be nice to have a mobile view enabled automatically! This is a feature request that we're tracking internally

The intersecting issue is a bug that is in our queue to be fixed, so I'll post here when the fix goes live

As you've noted, there's definitely room for improvement in the experience of creating mobile layouts. For use cases where end users will be accessing apps heavily on mobile devices, I recommend checking out our Retool Mobile product, which is separate from the desktop app product. It allows you to create Retool apps that can be accessed on the Retool app (downloaded from your mobile app store). The two potential downsides with this approach is that the end users would have to download the Retool app and the apps would be created separately from your desktop apps