I have an issue in the editor, and lately is has gotten worse, and the problem is that while writing text in any input, it looses focus (because of the code suggestions probably, not sure) .
The problem when the input field looses focus is that if I am using the key Backspace, it will start deleting things. Or if I am using Ctrl+Z to undo my last changes in the text I am writing, I am suddenly undoing the entire Query loosing code I have spent hours to polish!!
So I am requesting to disable Retool Keyboard shortcuts as they are proving the be extremely dangerous to me. I have already lost pieces of code and I am simply afraid of even writing text in the inputs.
Please also fix the inputs loosing focus. Not sure what triggers it, but it happens very very often.
Thank you for you answer but you oversimplified the problem. For example just a minute ago I wanted to change the name of a Query, and I confidently hit backspace 6 times because thatās the length of the word I was deleting, and I was seeing something was out of the ordinary but until my brain processed the problem, the finger already executed its task, omg, and I was seeing a message saying that multiple Queries were deleted and that now I have to manually delete a long list of queries related to them, no confirmation, no safety, pure crap!
So I use Undo, which sounds like a nice feature, but it is actually broken, because it does not restore the app correctly, many things are moved in other folders, another pure crap!
I take a backup every few hours, but I simply fail to understand why something that can damage my app is so easily accessible without a confirmation, or some sort of protection.
Deletion and Undo should not easily available specially if the Redo operation is broken, but even if it was working perfectly it is still a shitty thing to be able to loose data so easily.
I mean the UI should not do things like leaving a Query fully blank when I hit run on another Query that has a relation to it. Or when I load the UI some Queries are missing, or when I change from one SQL Query to another it changes from SQL to GUI and the SQL is completely removed. The point is: there are so many ways of loosing data because of a broken UI, why put tools to make it easier to loose data?!?!
Please let me disable the keyboard shortcuts, why should I be afraid of using my keyboard?!? I donāt have the mental energy to go forward when every key I hit can be disastrous!!
And all my Queries are on manual except one that runs on page load, and the UI is still very much unstable!! The UI has so many errors that it just blows my mind to think of a stable UI here at Retool. Sorry if it is too harsh but I feel terribly disappointed of having to be extremely cautions on every key I hit on the god damn UI because of the Keyboard Shortcuts
Hey Cristian, sorry that you are running into this. It sounds like itās not shortcut per-se, just a delete/backspace thatās unexpectingly deleting the queries . Iāve ran into this previously as well, but it was either my tab/ backspace/esc key was stuck, I forgot. That was just my case, probably wonāt help with general performance or editing experience.
If you happen to be on Edge on PC or Safari on Mac, you need to disable some power saving to make Retool run faster, or switch to Chrome with energy saver mode disabled
I use Firefox v145.0.2 (64 bytes) on Windows 11, high-end hardware.
The UI clogs for a split second every time I focus a new text input (in Query code, names, or events). To prevent UI errors or data loss, I must type extremely slowly (one key at a time), which is exhausting.
The issue first appeared around 150+ queries and has worsened significantly, pointing to the code suggestion/highlighting features loading as the source.
I request options to disable automatic code suggestions, default Retool keyboard shortcuts, and the synchronization of Query/Variable names across the application to improve editor performance.
Thank you for sharing those details. I can share those with Hong right now, as that is all very useful feedback and we do not want you to have to type slow to avoid issues with the app.
If you are hitting this issue around 150+ queries, there may be some performance degradation due to app bloat. I would recommend breaking up the app into sub apps and potentially apps with logic broken apart across multiple pages of the app.
As this modularization will greatly reduce overhead and improve performance.
There is only 1 Js Query running on app load. All the other queries are triggered only with an action, nothing on Auto! App has now over 500 queries, and performance degradation is only noticeable during app Editing with Graph on, so I am quite happy with that (wonder how it will work on production!! still a long way there). The UI fails to register most of the relations between each query, I am always getting orange notice saying query doesnāt exists, and it will sometimes go away, and later come back again.
I do have to say that I have been noticing over the past weeks that the UI is having an increasing number of tiny bugs. Things like writing and getting a space out of nowhere happens often, suggestions popping in the wrong place, and random app reloading (only app, not entire page). The Ctrl-Z is scary, you never know if it will only remove text, or the entire query.
Also the āExport .csvā I can download as backup from the PostgreSQL database is not accepted by the same database as a valid .csv!! This is important because I download those .csv files and in order to use them I have to save them again with another program. It would be nice to get valid .csv files from the start. And itās not like the file is not readable or has a strange text encoding, is just that the UI complains the .csv is not valid, while other programs have no trouble in recognizing the .csv file.
Also there is the detail that 3 months were needed to fix the 3 dots menu disappearing after clicking āExport to JSONā or āExport to Toolscript ZIPā. It did disappear but you had to be clicking twice to get the menu visible again. Such a small detail needing so much time to fix is troublesome. And the issue is not the bug itself, itās the sensation that these tiny bugs are accumulating instead of decreasing!
At the beginning when I joined Retool I was hoping to see a more rapid development of options available for each component to control style and position, since many basic visual features are missing (like for example frame modals only being positioned center, or not being able to control form inputs width and height with more precision, or table columns width being so unpredictable); BUT at this point I am only hopping to see a more stable Editing UI and have all those tiny bugs removed.
Oh and not having secure variables like ācurrent_userā is a time killer. I have to be over-thinking and planning every SQL query because I canāt have custom server side variables!
I suppose I will be thanking you for everything else that does work, and congratulate you for all your every day work.
Thank you for sharing those additional details! I can pass your feedback on the IDE/editor along to our engineering team
That is odd about the CSV file exporting, when you said that "the UI complains the .csv is not valid" which UI are you talking about? Is that Retool's UI is giving an incorrect linting error message about the CSV file exported from Retool Storage?
On the topic of secure variables/custom server side variables, is the Global Variable not able to meet your needs?
Also I just pinged Hong who had replied to you above and he said that because you are on Windows, one suggestion for performance would be to try to turning off Window's efficiency mode, or Chrome's efficiency mode or other energy saving config.
I have been testing Global Variable some time ago and I had the issue of being constants like. I was not able to modify itās value on runtime. There is something under Business plan (canāt remember name) but I am not ready to go on that plan yet.
"the UI complains the .csv is not valid" is Retool UI > Resources | Retool Database. But I recently found that I can connect directly to the database like any other PostgreSQL database, so that is a plus.
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. Iāve ran into this previously as well, but it was either my tab/ backspace/esc key was stuck, I forgot. That was just my case, probably wonāt help with general performance or editing experience.