Mel Sheppard, Author at Squirrel365

Version 1.18.10014

Mel Sheppard — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 13:59:27 +0000

Hotfix for the following issues:

- - Hidden groups were having problems calculating their size and position properly when changing anything within them, casusing objects to jump around (move to 0,0) in their parent container/canvas
  - Lines not maintaining their relative position inside of groups when you moved the group
  - List items height calculated incorrectly when using special chars.

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Version 1.18.10011

Mel Sheppard — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 15:04:26 +0000

Hotfix for the following issues:

- New alignment options in groups can cause problems when objects in the group have their x, y, size or width properties bound.
  We now detect if you have size or position bindings on child objects and provide options to use the older group style without alignment
- Publish button disabled if you open the designer by double clicking a squirrel file (windows only)
- Data from rows inserted into columns. Components affected: DB Query, DB Writeback, MegaQuery, Transpose and Unique list.
- DB Query returning 401 on first run in some circumstances.

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Version 1.18.10008

Mel Sheppard — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:52:28 +0000

Hotfix for the following issues:

- NaN in text labels with number/percentage/currency formatting
- New alignment options in groups can mess up the group bounds (edge case)
- Mapbox component not displaying when published (and during preview) when access token is not bound to cell
- DB query connector not clearing destination range when no results returned
- Closing desktop client with unsaved changes on cloud file forces local save.

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Version 1.18

Mel Sheppard — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 14:39:43 +0000

Autosave and versions – Never lose your work again!

Save files to the cloud and they are automatically backed up for you. With autosave turned on versions of you project are saved while you work. You can manage versions, preview and restore to an earlier point in time, giving you complete peace of mind.

Layout containers – Make your apps responsive

Want a nav bar to always appear at the bottom of the screen and and fill the full width? That’s where layout containers come in. We’ve added 2 new layout container types, Column and Row, designed to make building apps for mobile devices much easier and deliver a better end user experience.

New Mapbox component – Add maps to you apps

Bring location data to life with interactive maps. Visualise address data easily by adding markers to one the ready-to-use map styles. We’ve included data insertion to the markers so you can add further interactivity to you maps.

Image Library – Re-use images across all your projects

Have you got a logo, background or iconography that you use often? Upload images to your image library and access them directly from within the image component. This makes it super easy to add them to your projects in the future.

We squished more than 100 bugs and made improvements including:

Making it easier to move things in to and out of groups and containers
The metric tile component had an issue with the icon always appearing on top of everything
Added number formatting to the listbox component
Resolved an issue with custom CSS not working after publishing
Fixed an issue with “bllock mouse events” sometimes not working on shapes and images.

Learn more about the changes in 1.18 here.

Known issues

NaN in text labels with number/percentage/currency formatting
New alignment options in groups can mess up the group bounds (edge case)
Mapbox component not displaying when published (and during preview) when access token is not bound to cell
DB query connector not clearing destination range when no results returned.

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What’s new in Squirrel365 v1.18

Mel Sheppard — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 14:38:48 +0000

Squirrel365 v1.18 has been a while in the making! It has been driven by our desire to keep feature parity between the client tool/desktop designer experience and the new browser based designer experience that we are about to roll out. It’s full of exciting new features designed to streamline your app building workflow.

Expanding cloud platform capabilities

Versions and Autosave

You can now save your Squirrel365 project files to the cloud platform. Create and manage files and folders directly from the designer. This makes it really easy to keep your projects organised. An added benefit of saving your files to the cloud is that with each save operation it creates a new version of the file. Therefore, you get version management and rollback capabilities built in.

To create a version use ctrl+s (cmd+s for mac users) or use the save option from the FILE menu.

Open the version history manager to preview and restore versions.

For any files saved to the cloud, Autosave is enabled by default. Changes are automatically backed up and added to the version history.

Image Library

The new image library has arrived. Your personal image library is a central store of images that can be re-used in any of your projects. They appear as another image source in the image component, which makes it really easy to use that logo you added to 15 apps already and ensure consistency across your designs.

Upload images directly from the property panel or manage them via your account.

If you have an existing file that contains images that were not sourced from your library, you will be prompted to add them to the image library. This will bulk upload any images from your file. When an image is added to the image library Squirrel checks to see if an identical image already exists to prevent duplicates.

Custom font management

Easily manage custom fonts via the new custom font web interface. Navigate to the custom fonts page to upload your font and then select a fallback font.

Once you have uploaded fonts to your account, they appear in the font drop down in the property panel, so that you can use them to style text.

Responsive behaviour with Layout containers

We’ve added 2 new layout container types, Column and Row. These are designed to make building apps for mobile devices much easier and deliver a better end user experience.

Layout containers allow you to create column and row based layouts. When you add objects you can specify how they should behave in terms of their size and alignment, relative to its parent container.

For example – do you want a nav bar and it’s menu options to always appear at the bottom of the app and fill the full width? That’s where layout containers come in. The main canvas has a new property called ‘enable responsive behaviour’ and this will allow it to dynamically re-size based on the size of the device or browser window.

The components themselves have new horizontal and vertical alignment options which include stretch to fill, left, centre, right, top, middle, bottom. A visual indicator lets you see how your object will be positioned/aligned relative to its parent container.

By default, the columns and rows within a layout container fit to their parent, occupying equal space. However, you can override this behaviour and set min and max widths for each column or row.

Combining all of the above features, and by nesting Row and Column layout containers means you can create almost any app layout you can think of. Turn on the responsive canvas and you have mobile apps with fully responsive design.

Mapbox

Bring location data to life with MapBox maps inside your app.

MapBox users can now easily add mapping capabilities to their projects.

Style your map

Select from a number of classic MapBox styles (7 in total)

Further customise the map styling and functionality by turning on or off pan and zoom, 3D buildings, terrain and gesture support.

Place markers on the map by adding location data. The component works with lattitude and longitude coordinates. Alternatively, if you supply addresses it will geocode the address data.

Data insertion allows you to add interactivity to your apps when a marker is selected. Choose from Position, Series Name, or Row based insertion.

If you are new to MapBox read more about it here.

Enhanced start page

The start page gets a new look with the introduction of a menu system for easy access to some of the new features

The improved start page experience includes quick access to:

Templates – Templates are a quick way to start your next app
File manager – Organise your project files
Image library – Upload and manage images for use across projects
Project manager – Manage your published apps.
Recent projects – Toggle between files and published apps for quick access to what you have beeb working on recently.

New functions and components

We’ve converted a couple of our add-ons into native functions and components to improve performance

Unique – Remove duplicates from a list of values
Text Join – Combine a list of values into a single string
Loading Animation – Customisable loading animations

Important information

Squirrel365 v1.18 introduces some new features that are not backwards compatible with older versions. Layout containers, the asset library and Mapbox are all new. They didn’t exist in previous versions, so if you create a project that includes these and then try to open that file in an older version – you will get an error.

A less obvious change is the one we have made to how groups work behind the scenes to support layout containers. Once you have created a new group in 1.18 that file won’t be able to be opened in an earlier version.

Improvements

We’ve been working on this release for a while so it gave us the change to tidy up the code a bit and fix a number of bugs (104 to be precise). The notable ones included:

Making the process of moving components into and out of groups and containers easier.
Added number formatting to the Listbox component
Fixed intermittent issue with “block mouse events” on shapes and images not working
Sorted the z-index on the metric tile so items can be layered on top of it.
Resolved an issue with custom css being truncated on publish

Wrapping up

In conclusion, this release of Squirrel365 v1.18 should make for a more streamlined and connected workflow. Images, files and versions will all seamlessly integrate with the way you work to make building apps quicker than ever before.

Watch the What’s new in Squirrel365 v1.18 webinar

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2024 Year in review

Mel Sheppard — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 09:54:22 +0000

2024 in a nutshell

What an incredible year 2024 has been, so there’s no better time to do our first year in review!

Together, we’ve made remarkable progress in both our product and community. These achievements wouldn’t have been possible without the unwavering support of our amazing customers and community.

Thank you for choosing to build with Squirrel365. Your feedback and collaboration with our product and engineering teams have been invaluable, driving continuous improvement and innovation.

We’re excited to share our successes with you—from groundbreaking new integrations to the growth of our community and learning resources. Here’s to another year of innovation and collaboration!

Word is getting out

The number of people building apps with Squirrel grew by over 30% in 2024

An incredible 8,714 new apps were published

And published content got over 18 million views. That’s an app, created using Squirrel365, being viewed somewhere in the world every 1.75 seconds

Engaging our community

Throughout the year, the Squirrel365 team hosted webinars and posted articles and blogs sharing product updates, use case insights, and how-to’s with our growing community.

The Squirrel365 team use the platform to keep you informed of product updates and news, hints and tips etc. But far more importantly over 63% of the content in 2024 was generated by people like you. The number of members in our online community has grown by 53% in 2024, meaning a much bigger pool of like-minded Squirrel enthusiasts sharing their knowledge and experiences.

If you haven’t joined the community yet, what are you waiting for? Visit the community and log in with your Squirrel365 credentials.

Game changing features

We introduced a tonne of new features in our Winter and Summer releases as we continue to make app building accessible to more than just developers.

Automate PDF and PPTX document generation

In 2024 a primary use case emerged. You told us you were using Squirrel365 to build value calculators. With Squirrel365’s spreadsheet logic engine, it’s the perfect fit for bespoke/custom calculators using what-if style analysis interactive inputs and outputs. We created the PDF/PPTX generator to turn those ROI and pricing calculators into invaluable tools that can automate the creation of PDF documents, PowerPoint slides or Excel Workbooks. Think auto creation of business cases or quotations tailored to the user/prospect/customer.

OAuth for google sheets and Excel Online

A key milestone in democratising app creation is providing the ability to securely source data from online sources that we all have access to. By adding authenticated connectivity to Google Sheets and Excel, we made it possible to browse Google Drive, or One Drive to select a spreadsheet to be used as a live data source for your app.

Not only that but because we’re talking directly to the Google Sheet or Excel document, we can now update and insert rows too! Turn your project into an application with write-back capabilities, no database needed!

Progressive Web Applications (PWA)

PWA’s have been around for a while. Last year saw an increase in their popularity mainly due to app developers growing tired of the high percentages taken when selling apps via app stores. PWA’s allow you to visit a website or web app and install it as application on your device. This felt like a natural fit for Squirrel365 apps so we added this as an option for subscribers to the Builder plan. Customise your app with a name and an icon and you have something that looks and feels like a native app on mobile devices.

Custom code and more

Throughout 2024 we saw an increased demand for complex/highly customised apps. We often solved challenges with custom code to get an app to look a certain way, or do more than is available with standard components. What started as a quick fix for some of our consulting projects made it into the core product to allow the use of use Custom CSS and Javascript.

We also added support for Google Tag Manager so that you can add even more custom code (via tags) to your apps. Need to track conversions, get enhanced analytics, add cookie compliance? Our GTM feature, allows you to do just that!

Where we went…

IBIS

2024 saw the second ever customer influence session conducted at the IBIS Conference. It provided an opportunity to reflect on the features and enhancements that were directly influenced by regular Squirrel users. By the end of 2024 we had managed to deliver 12 out of the 17 top voted enhancements. As always talking to customers proved invaluable and revealed insights that we simply cannot get from data and product analytics alone.

Company catch-ups at The Wave, Bristol

As a 100% remote company it’s nice when we come together.

This year we started meeting at The Wave for company catch ups and workshops. It’s an inland surfing lake that has meeting rooms to hire and a cool café to work from. More recently, we extended this to ‘work together Fridays’. It’s completely optional and gives people a chance to just turn up and work with others. We’ve even had a few customers join us. If you are ever in the Bristol area just let us know as it’s great to work, chat and innovate together over a coffee.

Looking ahead to 2025

A lot of work has happened already, in preparation for our next release. This will include a soft launch of our designer in the browser experience, making it easier for people to get started without having to install anything. For those of us that prefer to use a client tool, the current desktop designer isn’t going anywhere. It’s essentially the same code base so we can ensure feature parity (as much as possible) between the two experiences.

Some of the other cool features to look forward to:

Image library
Autosave (cloud saved files and versioning
Layout containers to support responsive design
Custom fonts
And we’ve turned a few of our add-on functions into native functions, making them part of the core product, and improving the experience.

To everyone who has been part of our journey so far — customers, partners, and team members – Congratulations on all the achievements of 2024. We can’t wait to work together to make an even more remarkable 2025.

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Version 1.17.100011

Mel Sheppard — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 10:16:07 +0000

Hotfix for an issue with value input.

- Value input not accepting negative numbers when manually entered via keyboard.

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Version 1.17.10005

Mel Sheppard — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 11:55:43 +0000

Hotfix for the following issues introduced in v1.17.

- Running multiple instances of the designer causes crash
- Add gradient option to color picker in quick setup properties (rectangle only)
- Chart Tooltips don’t display after data pointing to formulas is updated.

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Version 1.17

Mel Sheppard — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 13:40:01 +0000

Repeat container goes horizontal – Repeat objects in columns or rows

The repeat container has a new option allowing you to set the direction that your content repeats in. Choose to repeat content in columns instead of rows and you can easily create dynamic column based designs such as pricing tables, cards and carousels.

Independent border and padding control

Take full control of your borders and padding with advanced properties allowing you to set independent:

Corner radius
Border width
Padding.

Color picker gets gradients

We’ve completely re-written the property panel color picker. It now has support for gradients. This release supports gradients on the rectangle and main canvas components. This will be rolled out across more component in future releases.

Custom code – Add custom CSS and JavaScript

Add custom CSS and JavaScript to your projects to further customise the look and feel of applications.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager gives you the ability to add and update your own tags for conversion tracking, site analytics, re-marketing and more. You can now add your GTM container ID to your Squirrel projects.

We’ve also been busy exterminating bugs and generally improving things including:

Selection box now moves correctly when x and/or y properties are bound
Font switcher now displays fonts in descending order
Correct the automatic number sequence of objects in the object browser
Google Sheet connector now brings single values through correctly
Fixed a crash in the scenario component
Web View components now no longer run when they are dynamically hidden
Fixed issue with repeat container scrollbars not showing correctly
Header wrapping applied to scorecard and data table components
Scorecard data insertion correctly resets when selected item is changed to -1.

Learn more about the changes in 1.17 here.

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What’s new in Squirrel365 v1.17

Mel Sheppard — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 13:37:52 +0000

Learn what’s new in version 1.17 of Squirrel365.

We’ve been busy Squirrel’ing away on a new release. The focus of 1.17 is to give you more control over how your projects look. And we’ve also laid the groundwork for some exciting new capabilities coming in 1.18, but more on that in a later post.

Independent border and padding control

Up until now you have only been able to turn borders on or off and set radius for the whole component. Whilst this is useful, it does tie your hands a little when trying to build the aesthetic or design you want. In this release we’ve enhanced the border and padding capabilities to give you more options:

Border radius (top-left, top-right, bottom-left, bottom-right)
Border weight (top, bottom, left, right)
Paddin (top, bottom, left, right)

Updated color picker

The color picker has been rebuilt from the ground up and can now support gradients. We’ve added support for gradients to the rectangle and main canvas components for the time being. More components will support gradients in the coming releases.

Custom code and more

Custom Code (JavaScript and CSS)

With the ability to add custom CSS or JavaScript, you can customise your Squirrel project to look and do more. Custom CSS allows you to create classes to override default styling. This can be useful when wanting to style just some of the text within a text label by using a class in a element.

Custom Code allows you to add your own JavaScript code to your application. This option will only work with locally exported projects.

Google Tag Manager

Want to know more about who is viewing your Squirrel projects, or want to add your own tags for conversion tracking, site analytics, remarketing and more? Simply add your GTM Container ID to your project and the GTM code will be added when you publish locally or to the Squirrel cloud.

Repeat container update

In 1.15 we added the repeat container, where you define a group of components and they automatically update and repeat, driven by the data in the spreadsheet, to create multiple rows. Great for dynamically building up a lists views etc. In 1.17 we’ve enhanced the repeat container to now let you repeat your content in columns as well.

Wrapping up

This release of Squirrel has been all about providing you more tools to customise your projects to get the look and feel exactly how you want it. With custom code and Google Tag Manager you can now also enhance you project to do more too.

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