Focus on future versions of Wappler

[sitestreet]

With v6 well on the way and lots of discussion about future features, can I put in a request?

I backed Wappler back in pre-v1 days because I saw its potential. I still see that and am loving using it. However, I feel the direction may have changed a little.

Once v6 is finished and released, could the focus return to extensions which are useful in the projects we build? For example, updating the calendar, updating recaptcha to v3, adding things like login with Google/Facebook/etc. These are all extensions which would make project building so much better and all the existing ones are exactly why Wappler is such a good product.

But the focus seems to have switched to working with various hosting options like Docker, DO, etc. and the new Visual Designer.

What does everyone else think? I fondly remember the days when the weekly updates would deliver new features which could be quickly implemented into projects taking them to another level.

[George]

This is pretty normal during the release of new major version. We focus first on major UI changes, specially during the beta, so we can put those in the final release. Then when the final is out we can focus again more on components and video producers can safely shoot their videos without being afraid that the UI will change a lot.

[Hyperbytes]

With you on that one @sitestreet.
As an occasional only docker user, for me,wappler has not really changed for a long time.
I am feeling that we are being left to implement our own component integrations now that is possible.
Dare I make a parallel with the direction of dreamweaver and reliance on 3rd party extensions at the expense of core functionality. I really dont want to see that develop. (Sorry George but got to be said)

[George]

It is always difficult to make the perfect balance between new features and bug fixes/improvements of existing features and make everybody happy.

The moment we put more focus on improvements and fixes, people mis the new features and complain nothings has changed. When we put focus on new features, people complain about stability and bug fixes.

It is also very personal per user case. We might implement new features that are useful for many, but a particular user don’t use them, so from his point of view, nothing is changed.

Also many improvements have no direct visual effect. Like for example the new major App Connect 2 version is a complete rewrite to be hugely fast, reactive and responsive. But with such rewrite we had to also rewrite all the 100+ app Connect components. And all that being fully 100% backwards compatible. So actually you won’t notice much but only a huge speed improvement, but it did cost us a lot of development time to realize, while the new feature visibility is little.

So that is also the balance between maintenance and new features, we do a lot of maintenance and updates of things that are not directly visible but we need to update those to keep Wappler up to date with all the frameworks, platforms and new ways of deploying your web sites and apps.

PS. Any suggestions of focus improvements are always welcome

[Hyperbytes]

Finally getting case structure in server connect would be a nice start.

[famousmag]

I am a new user and unexperienced in web. But please let me say a few words.

In Greek we say “Το καλό πράγμα αργεί να γίνει…”
A simple translation is “Good things take long…”

So, from my perspective, you do your best and try to improve wappler. Of course during this improvement bugs and issues come up and you/we have to solve them (by “we” I mean all those members of this community that take time to test and report the issues of beta channel and we thank them).

Now for me, by saying “Good things take long…”, it means more effort for you(team) and patience from us (users).
The only thing that makes me patient is having a glue for what I am patient for…
For the moment I am patient because I know that wappler v6 with AppConnect 2 and other major upgrades are going to change the game for Wappler.
And I am very carefull with my words…
I say “are going to change” and not “changed” because beta channel is still under construction with issues and bugs come up every little while and I assume that none of you guys could accept a serious project with deadline and start developing it using beta channel…

And to finish what I wanted to say, I thing that once we(team & users) all accept that the beta version is out in public at the same time with the stable version, then for sure main priority is solving the bugs and issues and after improvements of the stable version.
Once the v6 (with AppConnect 2 etc) is a game changer A LOT OF SERIOUS IMPROVEMENTS are going to come FROM THE MOMENT that it is COMPLETELY STABLE.
Then will be the time for BIG IMPROVEMENTS and I beleive they will come one right after the other.

I wanted to say 2-3 words but I just kept going without taking a breath! Now, i’m dried up, please somebody bring me a cold beer…

I wish health, success and patience to everybody

[Hyperbytes]

[brad]

All I know is Wappler makes me look like a genius in the eyes of my employer. That’s huge for me.

Thank you Wappler!

[karh]

@George

PS. Any suggestions of focus improvements are always welcome

I hugely look forward to you guys making the core of Wappler (how a user build with it) much more stable and robust.

I’m happy to hear the foundation is improving (appconnect), but there are many frustrations when working with Wappler 8+ hours a day.

I know that I share these with many other users as there’s many threads about them such as: My Top-30 flow killers in Wappler. What would be yours?

But the frustration is also very tangible in private conversations.
This is an example from last night that perfectly illustrates what is bothering me a lot.

Please note, this is an example, there are 10+ of these happening every day. (And before you ask me to report them, I will get to it at some point. But right now I am demotivated to do so as I feel the chance it gets fixed within 6 months is <10% and it’s time consuming to write reports). Plus a lot of them are already reported in the past, nothing new…

Example: I spent 20min getting the .join() formatter to work because I expected it to work like vanilla JS.
When I figured out the syntax, and in the end a bug caused more frustration: setting the $value became a string by the ui which I had to manually remove for it to work.
So (fully using the UI) Wappler generated: arrRedirectUrlGet.join('.', '$value')
The correct syntax is: arrRedirectUrlGet.join('.', $value)

TL;DR: Please focus on:

• Proper documentation with examples for at least the 20% most used wappler elements (like formatters).
• Bugs in the UI
• Feedback about improving productivity/workflows (top of mind: splitting panels, inline code editor, favourite server actions etc. see the post from @nickneustroev or a good overview)
• Improving syntax and documentation on creating extensions

[Hyperbytes]

@karh

Proper documentation with examples for at least the 20% most used wappler elements (like formatters).

I had ideas for a community driven docs site which i thought would take some of the pressure off the team by offsetting it to ambassadors/users but they didn’t seem keen for some reason. I did feed back my thoughts on the current docs but not got any definitive response yet.
I have put community docs site on hold for the moment.

[sitestreet]

Didn’t they add a couple of people to the team with the remit of docs? Romi seems to ring a bell but I can’t be 100% sure. I can’t find any reference to her anymore.

[AdrianoLuiz]

Good morning, everyone. I’ve been a supporter of Wappler since it needed funding to exist, and what I liked most about it was exactly that – the ready-made components. Nowadays, the team seems to be leaning more towards development and hosting, neglecting the productivity side. There should be more people on the team, one for suporte and one for new components.

I felt that after the extensions were released, the team shifted this responsibility to us and stopped focusing on creating new components. I remember the DMXZone days when new components were a reason to celebrate.

[jimed99]

@sitestreet - She’s left early part of this year

[karh]

Althought I really appreciate the effort - this is a commercial product in the end and I think this is part of the core product of any software.

Now the community is awesome and I would also personally contribute to a community docs site because I like the team. But again, I think the team should hire someone to do this and if they’re not financially healthy enough for that then they can be open about it and help enable the community to compensate.

[Alexander_Paladines]

And what do you think of this idea like hetzner community?

Its a good way to contribute to the community by getting paid in credits.

I that way Tutorials would be always up to date based on new releases, beta, new extensions, etc, etc.
I consider a good way to motivate the community.

[TMR]

@Alexander_Paladines

And what do you think of this idea like hetzner community?

That’s an excellent idea, its a win-win situation for all.

[sitestreet]

Yep. I really like that idea.

@George, what do you reckon?

[sb61]

that’s true, and I am my own boss.

[Hyperbytes]

This was the prototype of a community maintained docs system (managed from a dashboard accessed from suitable members). VERY early and incomplete I may state.
https://wappler.solutions/tutorials

[George]

Actually the Wappler docs are already hosted here in the forums under the #docs category. They are also wikis so everybody can participate and add new ones.