Table inside of a canvas to refer to the row where the canvas lives

1

Hi

I’m playing around with the canvas a bit and I trying to do the following:

  1. Table A has a canvas column, and another column X
  2. Inside of the canvas, there is a table B

Now inside of Table B, is there anyways to refer to the row in table A where this specific instance of table B lives, and be able to refer to thisRow.column X?

2

I created a named formula in the canvas that pointed to the parent row’s column and then referenced it from the table. This is because thisRow in the table refers to the canvas table and not the parent table. parentRow did not work in this scenario.

If you set things up this way, you can also keep around a templated canvas like in the following example. It’s a hack and it is not pretty but it works:

3

ah, a nice hack though, Basically turning parent row parameters into text.
Thanks!

4

i love it !
very clever

5

Hi Ed, I have been trying to replicate. Can you share the formula you used in the page?
I have tried thisrow.name and parentrow.name.
Thx

6

The trick is to build a canvas column with working formulas that reference the table columns you need. Then copy and paste that column value into its own “template” page which will have broken formulas. Then set the value for new row to be that “template” page.

I would not recommend doing things this way. I’ve moved away from using canvas columns with formulas because it is a hack that I’m not sure will always be supported in Coda.