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Key ideas

The words appTown uses, and how the pieces fit together.

#Apps

An app is one thing you build: a job tracker, a family budget, a stock list. Your apps page shows the apps you own and the apps shared with you, sorted into your own folders if you like. Every app has a billing owner (whose plan and AI credits it uses) and is shared with groups of people. There are no workspaces: each app stands on its own.

#Tables, fields and records

• A table holds one kind of thing (Customers, Jobs).
• A field is one piece of information about it (Name, Phone, Status), with a type that decides what it holds and how it is entered.
• A record is one row: one customer, one job. Every change to a record is kept as a version you can look back at and restore.
• A link field connects tables: a job's Customer points at a customer record. See Relationships.

#Views and the menu

A view shows one table's records in one way: a table, a board, a calendar, a map, a form, a chart. The app's menu lists the views; on phones the first five sit in a bottom bar. See Views and the menu.

#Expressions

Small spreadsheet-style formulas, like [Price] * [Qty] or [Due] < TODAY(). They calculate fields, fill defaults, check values, filter views, decide who sees which records and when automations run. See Expressions.

#Automations

An automation starts on a trigger (a record is added or changes, a schedule, a webhook, an API call, a button) and runs steps (change records, send an email, post to Slack, call an API, ask AI). See Automations.

#People, groups, access levels and roles

• A group is a list of people (by email) that you own and reuse across apps.
• Sharing an app with a group gives everyone in it an access level: Editor builds the app; User uses it. Owners are added by email and can do everything.
• Roles belong to one app (Dispatcher, Technician). A group's share includes the roles its people get. Security rules use roles to decide who sees and changes what. See Roles and security and Sharing.

#The builder, the draft and publishing

Owners and editors change an app in its builder. Every change goes into the draft, which only builders see in the preview, on test data. Publishing makes the draft the version everyone uses. Every change is numbered and can be undone; every published version can be rolled back. See Draft, publish and history.

#AI and credits

AI is optional. The AI builder changes the draft for you; the in-app assistant answers questions about an app's data; automation steps can ask AI too. AI use costs credits; every plan gets some each month. See AI builder and assistant and Plans and credits.