Smart Views
Smart Views let you code your List Views using JS, HTML, and CSS. They are taking data visualization to the next level. Ditch the Table View and display your orders on a Map, your events in a Calendar, your movies, pictures and profiles in a Gallery. All of that with the easiness of Forest Admin.

Forest Admin provides an online editor to inject your Smart View code. The editor is available on the collection’s settings, then in the “Smart Views” tab.

The code of a Smart View is a Glimmer Component ↗ and simply consists of a Template and JavaScript code.
You don’t need to know the Ember.js framework to create a Smart View. We will guide you here on all the basic requirements.
For more advanced usage, you can still refer to the Glimmer Component ↗ and the Handlebars Template ↗ documentations.
Forest Admin automatically injects into your Smart View some properties to help you display your data like you want.
Property | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
collection | Model | The current collection |
currentPage | Number | The current page |
isLoading | Boolean | Indicates if the UI is currently loading your records |
numberOfPages | Number | The total number of available pages |
records | array | Your data entries |
searchValue | String | The current search |
The records of your Collection are accessible from the records property. Here’s how to iterate over them in the template section:
{{#each @records as |record|}}{{/each}}
For each record, you will access its attributes through the
forest-attribute
property. The forest-
preceding the field name is required.{{#each @records as |record|}}
<p>status: {{record.forest-shipping_status}}</p>
{{/each}}
Accessing a
belongsTo
relationship works in exactly the same way as accessing a simple field. Forest triggers automatically an API call to retrieve the data from your Admin API only if it’s necessary.On the
Shipping
Smart View (in the Collection named Order
) defined on our Live Demo example, we’ve displayed the full name of the customer related to an order.{{#each @records as |record|}}
<h2>
Order to
{{record.forest-customer.forest-firstname}}
{{record.forest-customer.forest-lastname}}
</h2>
{{/each}}
Accessing a
hasMany
relationship works in exactly the same way as accessing a simple field.. Forest triggers automatically an API call to retrieve the data from your Admin API only if it’s necessary.{{#each @records as |record|}}
{{#each @record.forest-comments as |comment|}}
<p>{{comment.forest-text}}</p>
{{/each}}
{{/each}}
Trigger the
fetchRecords
action in order to refresh the records on the page.<button {{on 'click' @fetchRecords}}>
Refresh data
</button>
Trigger an API call to your Admin API in order to fetch records from any Collection and with any filters you want.
We will use the
store
service for that purpose. Check out the list of all available services from your Smart View.In our Live Demo example, the Collection
appointments
has a Calendar
Smart View. When you click on the previous or next month, the Smart View fetches the new events in the selected month. The result here is set to the propertyappointments
. You can access it directly from your template.component.js
import Component from '@glimmer/component';
import { inject as service } from '@ember/service';
import { tracked } from '@glimmer/tracking';
export default class extends Component {
@service store;
@tracked appointments;
async fetchData(startDate, endDate) {
const params = {
filters: JSON.stringify({
aggregator: 'And',
conditions: [
{ field: 'start_date', operator: 'GreaterThan', value: startDate },
{ field: 'start_date', operator: 'LessThan', value: endDate },
],
}),
timezone: 'America/Los_Angeles',
'page[number]': 1,
'page[size]': 50,
};
this.appointments = await this.store.query('forest_appointment', params);
}
// ...
}
template.hbs
{{#each this.appointments as |appointment|}}
<p>{{appointment.id}}</p>
<p>{{appointment.forest-name}}</p>
{{/each}}
Parameter | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
filters | Object | A stringified JSON object containing either:
A filter is built using the following template: { field: <a field name> operator: <an operator name> value: <a value> } An aggregation is built using the following template { aggregator: <and or or> conditions: <an array of filters or aggregations> }
List of available operators is: less_than , greater_than , equal , after , before , contains , starts_with , ends_with , not_contains , present , not_equal , blank |
timezone | String | The timezone string. Example: America/Los_Angeles . |
page[number] | Number | The page number you want to fetch. |
page[size] | Number | The number of records per page you want to fetch. |
Forest Admin automatically injects into your Smart View some actions to trigger the logic you want.
Action | Description |
---|---|
deleteRecords(records) | Delete one or multiple records. |
triggerSmartAction(collection, actionName, record) | Trigger an action defined on the specified collection on a record. |
The
deleteRecords
action lets you delete one or multiple records. A pop-up will automatically ask for a confirmation when a user triggers the delete action.template.hbs
{{#each @records as |record|}}
<Button::BetaButton
@type='danger'
@text='Delete record'
@action={{fn this.deleteRecords record}}
@async={{false}}
/>
{{/each}}
Please note that the Action triggering in the context of the Smart View editor can be broken as you might not have access to all the required information. We advise you to test the Action execution from the Smart View applied to the Collection view.
template.hbs
component.js
<Button::BetaButton
@type='primary'
@text='Reschedule appointment'
@action={{fn this.triggerSmartAction @collection 'Reschedule' record}}
/>
import Component from '@glimmer/component';
import { action } from '@ember/object';
import { triggerSmartAction } from 'client/utils/smart-view-utils';
export default class extends Component {
@action
triggerSmartAction(...args) {
return triggerSmartAction(this, ...args);
}
@action
deleteRecords(...args) {
return deleteRecords(this, ...args);
}
}
triggerSmartAction
function imported from 'client/utils/smart-view-utils'
has the following signature:function triggerSmartAction(
context,
collection,
actionName,
records,
callback = () => {},
values = null,
) {
// ...
}
Argument name | Description |
---|---|
context | The reference to the component, in the Smart View it is accessible through the keyword this |
collection | The collection where the Action is defined |
actionName | The Action name |
records | An array of records or a single one |
callback | A function executed after the action that takes as the single parameter the result of the action execution |
values | An object containing the values to be passed for the action fields |
Here is an example of how to trigger the Action with the values passed from the code, you only need to do it if you don't want to use the built-in Action Form
template.hbs
component.js
<Button::BetaButton
@type='primary'
@text='Reschedule appointment'
@action={{fn this.rescheduleToNewTime record}}
/>
import Component from '@glimmer/component';
import { action } from '@ember/object';
import { triggerSmartAction } from 'client/utils/smart-view-utils';
import { tracked } from '@glimmer/tracking';
export default class extends Component {
@tracked newTime = '11:00';
@action
triggerSmartAction(actionName, records, values) {
return triggerSmartAction(
this,
this.args.collection,
actionName,
records,
() => {},
values,
);
}
@action
rescheduleToNewTime(record) {
this.triggerSmartAction('Reschedule', record, { newTime });
}
@action
deleteRecords(...args) {
return deleteRecords(this, ...args);
}
}
To apply a Smart View you created, turn on the Layout Editor mode (1), click on the table button (2) and drag & drop your Smart View's name in first position inside the dropdown (3):

Your view will refresh automatically. You can now turn off the Layout Editor mode (4).

Once your Smart view is applied, it will also be displayed in your record's related data.


As of today, it's not possible to set different views for your Table/Summary/Related Data Views.
Last modified 1mo ago