# How to keep updating screen with an Airtable column until column is empty?

**URL:** <https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-to-keep-updating-screen-with-an-airtable-column-until-column-is-empty/983809>\
**Category:** Questions about Thunkable X\
**Created:** [November 19, 2020, 2:28am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-to-keep-updating-screen-with-an-airtable-column-until-column-is-empty/983809 "2020-11-19T02:28:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![amir.tehrani175gfhg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c5a1d2/32.png) [@amir.tehrani175gfhg](https://community.thunkable.com/u/amir.tehrani175gfhg)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 2:28am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-to-keep-updating-screen-with-an-airtable-column-until-column-is-empty/983809/1 "2020-11-19T02:28:05Z")

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Hello!

For my app, my dataset is the following:

- Each **row** represents one recipe

- Each **column** represents the details of that recipe - the steps of the recipe are in column D onwards

I want each screen to be one step of the recipe, and I know that it doesn’t make sense to create tens of screens but rather keep updating the info of the same screen with the dataset. I’ve figured how to do this, but only if I explicitly state the name of the column.

To make this more efficient and scalable, what can I do so that:

1. The next screen is always pulling the data from the next column (so current column + 1 over and over again)

2. It keeps on updating the next screen until it encounters a column that is blank, since different recipes will have a different number of steps (and therefore columns)

It seems like a while loop of pulling the current column + 1, until the column is empty. But I’m having trouble sorting this out in the Thunkable blocks.

 ![Screen Shot 2020-11-17 at 9.34.07 PM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/uploads/thunkable/original/3X/6/d/6d245915a0b30346835788c37ab16d2dae15a6e4.png)

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**Author:** ![drted](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/drted/32/92694_2.png) [@drted](https://community.thunkable.com/u/drted)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 3:07am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-to-keep-updating-screen-with-an-airtable-column-until-column-is-empty/983809/2 "2020-11-19T03:07:55Z")

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Because the number of steps will vary from recipe to recipe, you might consider a firebase JSON data source. It can be a little tricky to understand initially, but it will make you app so much simpler

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**Author:** ![amir.tehrani175gfhg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c5a1d2/32.png) [@amir.tehrani175gfhg](https://community.thunkable.com/u/amir.tehrani175gfhg)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 4:01am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-to-keep-updating-screen-with-an-airtable-column-until-column-is-empty/983809/3 "2020-11-19T04:01:00Z")

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Thank you so much for that advice! I will start look into switching to a Firebase JSON datasource asap.

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**Author:** ![luv.ak.tech](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/luv.ak.tech/32/104896_2.png) [@luv.ak.tech](https://community.thunkable.com/u/luv.ak.tech)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 11:58am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-to-keep-updating-screen-with-an-airtable-column-until-column-is-empty/983809/4 "2020-11-29T11:58:25Z")

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try timer and set the timer miliseconds 1 so it will check each 1 millisecond

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**Author:** ![ioannis](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/ioannis/32/146956_2.png) [@ioannis](https://community.thunkable.com/u/ioannis)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 12:20pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-to-keep-updating-screen-with-an-airtable-column-until-column-is-empty/983809/5 "2024-11-08T12:20:06Z")

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