Text columns can hold four different types of text in your app:
Plain text
Rich text
Emojis
Email addresses
Multiple texts
Plain text
A plain text column holds exactly that—plain, unformatted text values. This can be used for a wide range of purposes such as storing names, locations, addresses, roles, comments, notes, tasks, days of the week, months of the year, etc. Your text can also include emojis.
You can display this information in your app using various Components, or as Column Values when setting up Collections and components. The appearance of the plain text values in your app depends on the formatting options available for the chosen component.
Rich Text
A rich text column holds text that can be formatted or styled as italic text, bold text, headers, bullet points, numbered lists, links, and more using Markdown syntax. Values in a rich text column can be displayed with the specified styling using the Rich Text Component in your app.
For an in-depth explanation of what Markdown is and how to use it, check out the Markdown Guide. If you'd like to try a browser-based Markdown text editor, try StackEdit.
Emoji
An emoji column can hold one or more emojis as well as plain text. If you use multiple emojis in a row (or emoji and plain text), you can display the information in your app in the same way as you would display plain text values.
You can also display emojis in this column as the image in a collection component. When configuring the component, select the emoji column as the Column Value in the image field. Glide will use the emoji as the image for that collection item. If a row has more than one emoji in the column, Glide will use the first emoji as the image.
An email column holds email addresses. You can display the values in this column in your app using any component that displays a text value or as Column Values when setting up collections and components. You can use the values in this column in multiple Actions like Send Email and Compose Email, as well as with integrations like Gmail and Microsoft Outlook.
Email addresses in a table can also be used in Forms so that, when a user who’s signed in to your app submits a form, they don’t need to manually share their email address with you.
Multiple Texts
The Multiple Texts column stores multiple text values as an array. This allows users to assign multiple Roles to a single user and use those roles with Row Owners to control which data each user can access.
When a multiple texts column is used with Row Owners, users gain access to rows if any of the values in their array match any of the row owner columns. For example, if a user has Manager, Finance in their roles, they can access rows where a row owner column contains Manager, Finance, or both.
How to populate a Multiple Texts column
Multiple Texts columns cannot be edited directly in the Data Editor. You must use a Workflow to populate them:
Create a Make Array column that combines the text values you want to include (e.g., Role 1, Role 2).
Create a Multiple Texts column to store the array.
Create a Manual Workflow with a Loop through the table where you created the Multiple Texts column.
Inside the Loop, add a Set Column Values action.
Set the Multiple Texts column value to the Make Array column you created.
Run the Workflow to populate the Multiple Texts column for all rows.
Editing multiple texts columns
When a Multiple Texts column is used for Roles, it cannot be edited through Forms, Edit Screens, or App Interaction Workflows. To update role values, use workflows such as Manual Trigger, Scheduled Trigger, Email Trigger, Slack Trigger, Webhook Trigger, or Human-in-the-loop workflows.
Using Multiple Texts for Roles
Once you've created your Multiple Texts column and workflow, here's how to use them for role-based access:
In the table you want to control access to (e.g., Tasks), add Text Columns with the same role names you used in your User Profile table (e.g., Department, Employee Type).
Make those columns Row Owners.
For each row in those tables, enter which roles should have access (e.g., Finance, Manager).
In the Form where you are adding new users, set the Workflow you created as the on-submit action.
Go to User Profile in the Layout Editor and select the Multiple Texts column that you created previously in the Role field.
Now, when a new user is added with assigned roles, the Workflow automatically populates their Multiple Texts column, and they'll have access to any rows where their roles match the Row Owners.