Thanks for V4 and the hard work but ... some wishes

Wappler General
#1

Thanks to the team for the V4 and for the support here. Wappler is a great tool and the team is really impressive. Delivery machines!
BUT
as a wappler wannabee… playing with the tool seriously since may i wish and really think that this has to be a priority in order to get new users and better retention: tutorials/use cases / more detailed documentation etc. The current documentation is outdated and lot of things are not covered. I guess for people with dev background it’s ok, for people coming from no code without a dev background it can be a deal-breaker or make the learning path really slow and hard.

This is really an issue for new users and makes the learning curve even steeper. Would love to see the team pausing new features and focusing for some time on such things.

Wish you all a well-desserved summertime with beloved ones and hope those wishes will come true soon.

What do you think guys?

12 Likes
2021: The Year in Review
#2

I agree 100% on your assessment of the documentation.

But to be honest, even when the documentation was up to date, I learn more by coming to this forum every day. With the superior support from the team on this forum I have learned I could do stuff that I didn’t even know I needed to do.

I spend way to much time on these forums. But i do learn something new every single day. More than I would from documentations.

But yeah, some starter documentation for users that are not as ‘into’ these forums would be nice.

8 Likes
#3

Wappler 4 is a crown to the team’s cohesive labor for sure.
However, the update of essential tutorials would accent the crown to an even higher appraisal.
Great job to all!

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#4

We will be improving and updating the docs to match the new version 4 UI.
However even if the docs are showing v3 UI, they show the basics of how the things work in Wappler and the logic is the same.

With the rapid development cycles it’s hard to keep all the docs up to date with the most recent UI. As soon as you get the logic, it should be really easy to adapt to any UI change.

6 Likes
#5

Lovely to hear the praise and also the views of what is needed…

I’ve yet to use v4 but am very excited at the prospect very soon…

Added to the new user list of features for me would be a much more intuitive Data Bindings / Data Formats window that fully supports a clear graphical and/or/if representation. My app is full of complex logic and the current graphical approach so lacks intuition that I’ve had to do it all at the code level.

@George and I discussed what it could become in a thread about 18 months ago… with a structure somewhat like the Database Query Conditions window…

I feel this would make handling the logic of an app sooooo much more intuitive for no coders, and is one thing I feel that Bubble has got right in the way they approach it… but Wappler can definitely do it better! :rocket:

query
query819×413 53.7 KB

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#6

you mean something “a la bubble”?

1 Like
#7

a la “more intuitively graphically representing and/or/if”…

Bubble’s way is interesting but gets a bit messy for complex logic… I think Wappler can do something much better, and basically have that format already as shown in my screen shot above!

1 Like
#8

Agree. It’s really the next step to make Wappler a pure killer for non dev.

#9

Yes… and it is a clear decision for the team to make if they want to go ease-of-use for non devs or deep-and-powerful for devs!

#10

yes, it’s a balance.
But with V4 I guess most of deep and powerful needs of devs are covered no?

#11

If you have more ideas or examples of how we should improve our visual designing, please do share. We are always open to new ideas!

2 Likes
#12

I think it’d be great to post some “How to Build” walkthroughs just like these: https://bubble.io/how-to-build

It’s so effective for digging in and figuring out the basic concepts for how the nuts and bolts work for new users.

Wappler is very powerful and it has a learning curve - everybody agrees with that, I think. Are there walkthroughs available for new Wappler users? The videos are helpful and this forum is amazing, but there is an opportunity here for increasing new-user adoption of Wappler by creating some step-by-step walkthroughs- in my opinion!

4 Likes
#13

Excuse me, but I really don’t understand how would building an Instagram, Unsplash, Udemy or Twitter “clone” help new users? Why would you want to build an Instagram clone?

Isn’t it better to understand the concept of building any web app? How to insert data, upload photos, show dynamic data on the pages etc. and build whatever you like instead of an Instagram clone?

10 Likes
#14

Because “How to build an instagram clone with X tool” makes people think that the tool will allow them to actually build an instagram clone and potentially become famous and rich like Zuckerberg.

What they don’t know is that neither tool or them are actually capable of building an instagram clone. Focus on the word clone. Not a half-baked frontend with close to zero backend functionality that is unable to scale beyond a mockup.

But hey…it’s marketing!

4 Likes
#15

I spent some time looking at these how to build a clone of “random app/site here”, and they are not actually showing how to build a clone of the site. The end result is not a clone of this site or app … example, the facebook clone, where they say:

  • User Signup : After creating a Button element with the text “Sign up,” Click “Start/Edit Workflow.” Then select a new action: Account > “Sign the user up” to use the built-in Bubble signup.
  • Allowing Users to post messages on their wall : Data (Things) > “Create a new thing”
  • A feed of posts from all / some Users : This can be done without a workflow, by creating a repeating group on the page and setting its “Type of content” to “Posts” and filling out the “Data source”
  • Showing logged-in users their feed but a generic welcome message to logged-out users : This can be done without a workflow, by creating elements for both audiences on the page and conditionally showing / hiding the appropriate one depending on whether the viewer is logged in.

etc.

So we can also create such tutorials indeed :slight_smile:

User signup -> check the security provider tutorials
Allowing Users to post messages on their wall -> check the insert record tutorial
A feed of posts from all / some Users -> check the dynamic data / repeat region tutorial

alright, you’ve built a facebook clone :slight_smile:
And it seems to me all gets down to getting the basics of building any web app and working with dynamic data.

4 Likes
#16

Don’t forget to add some facebook colors.

https://www.schemecolor.com/facebook.php

1 Like
#17

Are you not confused by the extension at the end of your link? :grin:

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#18

It’s useful for 1 reasons :

  • It’s a good way to bring sign up for trial for Wappler.
  • It’s a great way to learn, in those tutorial you find tons of “how to” and most of them are things you will need for 99% of your projects. The amount of informations in those tutorial is huge.
    The how to build is just a learning method, the goal is not to build instagram.
1 Like
#19

Then why instead of showing how to build “clones” not show people how to build a login system, how to insert and manage data in the database, secure it and how to display it later on the page?

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#20

at the end of the day it’s the same goal, just different path.
For marketing purpose it’s not bad to get acquisition (more than classic tutorials).

I like both methods and think they work well together.
Imho whatever the method, if Wappler want to target non dev / no code people there is a need for documentation, whatever it is. If Wappler does not want to attract such customers it’s another topic.

3 Likes