Setup & Limitations
How the app fits onto your Coda doc, and what to expect.
The idea: a profile is a Coda table plus the columns you choose to show. In Manage Columns you pick which of the table's columns are active — each one becomes a field that carries its own settings (icon, where it shows, colours, type options) across the widget, lists, detail and add/edit. A few columns play dedicated roles (Display Title, Entry Title, Action buttons, Image, File, Progress). Nothing is assumed about your column names.
Setting it up
1. Connect
Generate a personal API token in Coda (Account Settings → API Connections → Generate API token), paste it into the app, and pick the doc and table you want.
Document-restricted tokens are supported. If your token is scoped to a single doc (so it can't list your docs), turn on “Document-Restricted Token” in the editor and paste that doc's ID — in a URL like https://coda.io/d/_dAAAAbbbb the ID is AAAAbbbb (drop the _d marker). The app verifies access by loading the doc's tables, then you configure as normal. Give each restricted doc its own profile, and you can work with several docs side by side, each with its own limited token.
2. Choose your columns (Setup tab)
- Open Manage Columns — your table's columns are listed. Tap one to add it as a field, ✕ to remove, and drag the handle to reorder. Tap an active column to set its icon, where it shows (Widget · Lists · Add), and options for its type.
- Each field renders and edits to match its Coda type: select → coloured chips, relation → chips/rows/checklist (tap to open with a profile, optionally editable), person → people picker, scale → repeated icon, plus slider, date, number, and checkbox/toggle.
- Display Title, Entry Title (the writable title used for add/edit), Action buttons, Image, File and Progress have their own dedicated selectors — they behave differently from normal fields. Action buttons accept a Coda button column or a checkbox/toggle column (which becomes a tappable switch).
3. Shape it (Display & Layout tabs)
In Display, set how the in-app list behaves — group by a column, sort, group order, and a Cards or Checklist style. In Layout, give each column a widget/list line (L1–L4); columns group onto rows by line and keep your Manage Columns order within each line.
4. Make it yours (Colors tab)
Themes (system/light/dark), widget and edit colours, action-button colours, and each active select column's per-option colours — pull them from Coda, tweak, or clear.
5. Profiles
A profile is a saved table + its whole setup. A home-screen widget points at a profile; the in-app Lists tab shows a profile live. Duplicate a profile to show the same table two ways, or Duplicate & Match to point a copy at another view or table — its columns re-match by id, then by name.
Known limitations & preparing your tables
Most of these come from how Coda's API works, not the app. A little table hygiene goes a long way:
Use unique names in your key columns. Relations are linked by row id wherever possible, but a few convenience features (like the quick-add “+” on a group header) match by name. Unique names in your title/primary columns keep matching unambiguous no matter what.
- Files & images are view-only. You can open/download files and view images, but you can't upload or change them from the app — Coda's API doesn't allow uploading attachments.
- Buttons: only server-side button actions run through the API (modify a row, run an automation, etc.). Buttons that open a row / page / link or navigate can't be triggered by any outside app.
- New rows need a moment. After you add a row, Coda takes a little while before it can be linked to; the app finishes any relation links in the background automatically.
- Use an edit-capable token. A view-only token shows your data fine but can't add, edit, or run actions (Coda returns a permission error). Use a token from an account with edit rights to that doc.
- Doc-restricted tokens work; table-only restriction does not. A token limited to a single document is fully supported (one doc per profile). A token restricted to only a single table isn't — the app needs to read the document's table list, so the token must be able to reach the whole document.
- Sliders vs progress bars: Coda reports both as the same column type, so the app can't auto-tell them apart — use the Progress role for a read-only bar, or a normal slider column for an editable slider.
- Subitems / nesting: Coda subitems come through as ordinary rows; the app shows a flat list, but you can group by a column (including a parent relation) to organize them.
- Large tables: the widget loads a capped number of rows for speed (you can raise the cap in config).
- Calculated/formula columns are read-only (you can display them, but not edit a formula's result).
Widget for Coda is an independent, third-party application and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Coda.
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