Following the successful launch of the Alloy Apps last month, we've been working on a number of improvements and fixes for them. Here are a couple of highlights! The update took place during the evening of the 24th of April. For a full list of changes, see v2.71 in the Alloy Changelog.

Going forward, we'll be concentrating our efforts on enhancing and expanding the Alloy Apps, as they represent the future of Alloy. Don't worry, the classic Alloy Web interface isn't going anywhere yet and will continue to receive updates! However, the development of new features and overall evolution of the service will be focused towards the apps from now on.

The Alloy Apps are initially being made available only to organisations that request access. If you'd like to opt in, please contact Support!

View item details on small screens 📱

The Item Viewer in the apps is designed with smaller screens in mind. The customisable canvas sections – plus the new grid layout of item forms – enables content to be automatically adjusted for different screen sizes.

In some apps, the Item Viewer is displayed as a resizable side panel. You can change its width to suit your preference and the available screen space, ranging from Large (1000px) to Extra small (400px).

However, some mobile devices have very small screens! Looking at you, iPhone SE... 👀 Therefore, we've added an Extra extra small (270px) width, which hides some elements in order to fit on-screen. You're also protected from selecting widths that are too big.

Open the target DoDI of a Link attribute ➡️🎯

The new Designer app provides an optimised layout for configuring your designs and interfaces. Link attributes are now listed in their own section, which you can jump to by selecting the corresponding button on the right.

Link attributes now display a D button, which lets you quickly open the design/interface targeted by the attribute. To open it in a new tab, use middle-click or Ctrl-click.

Custom Link attributes (added by your organisation) display a 3-dot menu instead, which also gives you the ability to remove the attribute as needed.

Clone a user group 👤

Alloy has a robust Permissions system that lets admins control who has access to what! It involves adding users to one or more groups (directly or via an assigned role). Each user group defines a set of permissions for accessing specific objects in one or more feature categories, e.g. designs, interfaces, layers, item forms, workflows.

Additionally, admins can filter the items available to user groups by creating access policies for specific designs and interfaces.  

It's now possible to clone a user group via the API, by copying its permissions and access policies onto a new group. You no longer need to redefine everything from scratch! To learn more, see ReDoc and Swagger.

This functionality will be utilised by the upcoming Permissions app, which will provide new ways of working with permissions, access policies and user accounts. Subscribe to these announcements to stay informed!