New Book on Learning Bubble

 If you've tried Bubble or would like to, I've published a new book "Learning Visual (No-Code) Programming Step-By-Step With Bubble" that could help you get more familiar with Bubble's capabilities. The book's just been published on Amazon for anyone who wants to take a look. It's arranged as a set of exercises for the reader to try, along with my notes and screenshots explaining how I went about solving those exercises.

If you sign up for a free account with Bubble you'll find a set of lessons available on your home page and the final one guides you through creating a "to-do" app. Bubble used to suggest a number of possible enhancements to that app and a while back I tried working my way through making those changes. The modifications involve making use of features like repeating groups, search boxes, popup windows, auto-binding, highlighting, notifications, option sets, filtering constraints and user authorization (including signup and login forms).

If you're interested, please take a look and send any questions, criticisms, suggestions or comments to info@mastering-nocode.com. 

Bubble: Using Containers to Make Style Changes Easier

 A quick tip when building an app using Bubble. Place a container (Group element) on each page in the app and put all the other elements for the page inside that container. That way any style changes you make on the page will automatically apply to all elements on the page.

A Quick Tip on Using Bubble (Highlighting)

Imagine you have a repeating group filled with "to-do" records that include a due date along with a "Finished" field and you want to highlight those records that are still incomplete and past their due date. Here's how to do that:

• To change the font color of the due date field in the list of to-dos, double-click the “Due date” element in the first row of the to-do list repeating group to display the element's property editor.
• Click on the “Conditional” tab in the properties box, go to the "When" field  and build the expression “Current cell's Todo's Due Date < Current date/time and Current cell's Todo's Finished is 'no'”.
• In the “Select a property to change when true” dropdown, pick “Font color”. Then select to change the font color of the due date to red when the condition is true.

An Interesting Bubble Article on Medium.com

I just came across a really detailed article on medium.com about one person's experience deciding whether or not Bubble could build his business startup application (Could I Build My Product on Bubble.io?, Will Ericksson, Dec. 2020). It's strictly Will Ericksson's opinion, but the article covers a lot of questions in depth about what you can or can't do with Bubble.

While the author ended up building his application with Bubble (and now teaches a course on Bubble), he does try to provide a balanced discussion of the pros and cons of using Bubble for a relatively complex software project. The topics he covers include scalability, integrations, security, and flexibility. You can find the full article at: https://medium.com/swlh/could-i-build-my-product-on-bubble-io-75923a41b9b6 

UK Providing Free No-Code Training with Bubble

In case you missed it, Bubble's posted an article by Vivienne Chen back in March, discussing how the UK is funding no-code learning. Here's an excerpt from the article (https://bubble.io/blog/uk-no-code-bubble/):

"Many local and national governments invest in funding to help people develop professional skills that can grow local business and improve their residents' lives. But the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom has become the first region in the world to turn to no-code technology like Bubble as an affordable, scalable solution to drive economic growth and innovation.

This year, a cross-sector partnership called Supertech, funded by the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) launched a free program teaching business professionals how to build web apps without code, using Bubble's no-code web app builder. What started out as a pilot program of 30 people is now expanding to a hundred more opportunities, including a potential university student cohort from the area."

I thought this was an interesting example of how much importance is being attached to the future of no-code programming, not just by private companies but by governmental organizations.

Can Plugins Affect Your App's Performance?

Can plugins affect your no-code app's performance? The short answer is yes, they can. Plugins are a great asset to have available to implement features that your app platform doesn't include, but too many plugins can definitely affect load times and general performance. Every plugin you use adds more code to your app, so as you make changes to your application, keep an eye on which plugins you really need.

There's a huge "need for speed" in today's apps and better performance can mean better sales. Many years ago the company I worked for sold a computer system to the manager of the local Coca-Cola bottling plant because we could sort 2500 items in less than 2 hours. Things have changed dramatically since then, but the point is still valid. If your app is faster than your competitors (or at least on the same level), that's important.

Plugins can be great - but you can have too much of a good thing.

Make Your No-Code Mobile App Stand Out

Want your mobile app to stand out from the crowd? One way to do it is to make your app capable of being used offline. It's really frustrating when your friendly ISP has a problem and you lose your Internet connection just when you're in the middle of working on something. That's when you really appreciate an app that lets you continue to work even when you're offline.

So how do you build no-code mobile apps that can function offline? Choosing the right development platform is the key. Not all platforms offer offline capability, but there are a few, including the ones listed here:

• Zoho Creator - According to Zoho: "The Zoho Creator mobile app can cache recently accessed Forms, so they're available when a user's device is offline or unable to connect to Zoho Creator. Apart from automatic caching of Forms, the mobile app supports saving of Reports, so that they can be accessed offline. Records submitted during offline state are synced automatically when your device is online.

For iOS devices, the Zoho Creator app must be active, to enable automatic synching of records. For Android devices, automatic synching of records take place when the device comes online, irrespective of the app state. The cached data is refreshed when a user accesses Zoho Creator. All cached data, failed entries, and saved reports will be deleted on logout."

Note: Offline access won't work for any form that contains an integration field, a formula field that includes other fields, or a workflow that triggers actions prior to the form being submitted. If some forms do fail once the user gets back online, the user will be able to see why and make corrections or deletions. Also, remember that reports won't include any entries made after the report was last saved while the user was online.

• AppSheet -  According to AppSheet: "AppSheet apps can be used on a mobile device even when that device is offline and disconnected from the network. This is possible because the information needed to run the app (the app definition, the data, and optionally images and documents) is stored locally on the mobile device."  Note: The app must initially have been launched when the user was online for offline access to work. Also, if the user is running the app in a web browser offline image and document caching won't work. In addition, audio and video files aren't stored locally on the user's device so they won't be available in offline mode.

• Appy Pie - According to Appy Pie: "Appy Pie apps are light, fast and deliver a native app’s user experience. What’s more interesting about them is that they have the capability to provide content to the users in offline mode also."  Since data and content are stored in the user's device the app can allow them to continue working if the network connection fails or has intermittent outages - once a connection is re-established syncing will take place automatically to download any changes in the app.

• TrackVia - Offline capability is available in all apps if you're using one of TrackVia's "Enterprise +" plans.
  

• DronaHQ -  DronaHQ is a fairly expensive platform to use (currently $100 per month, paid annually, for their basic plan), but they have offered offline access in all mobile apps built on their platform since 2017.