Setup & Limitations
How the app fits onto your Coda doc, and what to expect.
The idea: the app has a set of ready-made field slots (Status, Priority, dates, numbers, relations, notes, images, a progress bar, action buttons, and a few custom slots). You match each slot to one of your own Coda columns — the app then renders, adds and edits your table around those choices. 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.
2. Match your columns (Columns tab)
- Each slot's dropdown lists only the columns that make sense for it, and shows every column's type in parentheses (e.g. Progress (slider), Cover (image)) so it's easy to match.
- Image, File and Progress have their own view-only slots. Cost / Number slots take numeric columns; dates take date columns; Notes takes text. The flexible slots (Tag, Category, Contact, Custom 1–2, …) take anything else and render to match the column's real type.
- Action buttons accept a Coda button column or a checkbox/toggle column (which becomes a tappable switch).
3. Shape it (Layout tab)
Reorder fields, choose which widget line (L1–L4) each sits on, and set how the in-app list behaves — group by a column, sort, group order, and a Cards or Checklist style.
4. Make it yours (Appearance tab)
Themes (system/light/dark), colors, per-option chip colors, and action-button colors.
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 different ways.
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.
- Sliders vs progress bars: Coda reports both as the same column type, so the app can't auto-tell them apart — put a column in the Progress slot for a read-only bar, or in a normal field 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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