What are Preview Features?
Before being fully integrated into the builder, some Glide features can be previewed by enabling them in your Dashboard. Preview features are experimental. While users can test and use them, there might be some differences between the preview and the final release of the feature.
Glide releases features in Preview and Beta stages before they are ready for General Availability.
During the Preview stages, features should be used for experimentation and demos only. Preview features can contain critical bugs that may cause apps to crash. The Glide team may also make breaking changes to the feature, meaning new updates could cause any instances of the feature already in use to break.
Once a feature is in the Beta stage, the feature can be used in production apps but may still experience minor bugs and issues. Minor bugs and issues could temporarily cause a feature to stop working, or make it difficult to use a feature until the Glide team can make a fix. Features in beta can be deprecated or discontinued at any time.
A feature is considered stable once it reaches General Availability.
Stability of experimental features
Please proceed with caution for apps with users, and report bugs in the Glide Community forum under the bugs category.
Glide's Product Release Phases
Note that official Glide documentation is not written until the Beta stage. The Glide support team is only available for features that have reached General Availability.
Stage | How to Access | What to Expect | Use Cases | Where to Give Feedback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Private Preview | Glide enables the feature for your team. Reserved for Experts and select Enterprise customers. | The feature may still have critical bugs and issues that can affect your app. | • Apps for testing and demos • Non-critical apps with users that can experience outages | • Glide Experts Slack workspace |
Public Preview | Team admins can enable the feature in the Preview panel of your team settings. | The feature is stable but may experience breaking changes. The feature could stop working or even be removed. | • Non-critical apps with users that can experience outages with the feature | • Glide Experts Slack workspace • Public preview announcement thread in Community forum |
Beta | The feature is accessible to all customers with a Beta badge. | The feature is less likely to experience breaking changes. There may still be bugs and issues. | • Apps with users that can handle issues with the feature | • Glide Experts Slack workspace • Beta announcement thread in Community forum |
General Availability | The feature is accessible to all customers. | The feature is stable, will not experience breaking changes, and is ready for use by all apps. | • All apps | • Glide Experts Slack workspace • Community forum with feature tag |
Official Glide documentation and support does not become available until features reach different phases of the release schedule. See the chart below for when to expect documentation and support from Glide.
Stage | Glide Documentation | Glide Support |
|---|---|---|
Private Preview | ❌ | ❌ |
Public Preview | ❌ | ❌ |
Beta | ✅ | ❌ |
General Availability | ✅ | ✅ |
Enabling Preview Features
Enable preview features in the Glide Dashboard to get a sneak peek of what’s upcoming.
Note that some features require a paid plan. If you enable a feature that is not available on your plan, you will see a popup prompting you to upgrade when you try to use the feature in your apps.
By default, preview features are not enabled for testing. They can be activated through the toggle switch associated with the feature. You can choose to enable as many, or as few, preview features you like.
Once activated, the experimental features will be accessible in all applications associated with your account.
When an experimental feature moves from preview to a standard release, it will generally operate as you've configured it. However, once the standard release is announced, we recommend reviewing your configuration to make sure it’s still functioning the way you intended.