Learn Frames

Learn how to create and manipulate frames in practice. Create your own frames based on your data. Practice makes perfect!

In this design, let's focus on our spreadsheet. The MINTDATA no code app builder has the concept of frames, which are essentially nested spreadsheets. They can be easily created and modified.

1. What is a frame?

A frame has named columns and a set of rows. If a cell contains a frame data type, it can be opened in a nested view. Let's see what frame types we have and what we can do with them.

2. How to create a frame

In our spreadsheet, we have two invoices that we can use to create frames. We can create frames in either of the two ways - the hard way and the easy one. The default, hard way means referencing the range (invoice) you want to convert to a frame in the FRAME function without any additional parameters. The frame is not updated automatically each time a new row is added to the invoice. The easy way implies using "true" as the third parameter in the FRAME function, whereby the frame is automatically updated each time a new row is added to the referenced invoice.

3. What is a nested frame and how to create one

A nested frame is a frame that contains other frames. We made a nested frame here by first converting both the invoices into frames and then putting these frames into another frame using the FRAME function.

4. How to create a computed column

We can add a computed column to our frame. A computed column is calculated based on other columns in the frame. For example, we've got an invoice with a column that has a subtotal in euros calculated based on the column in dollars. Here, we use the pipe operator to add a computed column to the frame. To get the subtotal in euros, first we need to multiply the subtotal in dollars by the exchange rate, and then wrap the expression into the ROUND function to display the result as a whole number.

5. Group data by a column – just like Excel pivot tables

Similar to Excel pivot tables, data in a frame can be grouped by a column. We use the GROUP_BY function to group the data by the company name. When we open the resulting nested frame, we see that the information is organized in a clear and logical way.

6. How to filter data in a frame

We can use the FILTER formula to search for the necessary information in the frame. In the first case, we'd like to find apples, and in the second – all the products under $2/kg.

7. How to grab multiple relevant rows

We can grab relevant information from a frame by using the GRAB function. Here, we've pulled out all fruits – there are only emojis now in the frame. In the next cell, we've pulled out the first fruit from our frame.

8. How to glue two frames together

One more thing we can do about frames is to glue them together. Here, we have two separate frames in our spreadsheet. We can easily glue them together by using the pipe symbol "|" between the cell references.

9. How to augment a frame

Our spreadsheet here contains two invoices grouped by company name. In a cell below, we use the AUG formula to add today's date to each row of data. And we use the FORMAT_DATE formula to make sure that the date is displayed correctly.

You've just learned how frames work. They are easy to create, modify, and manipulate on the MINTDATA platform. Explore the design yourself to find out more about frames!