Introducing AirDev Canvas - the free app foundation for your next Bubble project

vlad · July 17, 2018, 4:51pm

Hi Bubblers - we have an exciting resource we wanted to share.

We at AirDev started building Bubble apps for clients 4 years ago. For the first two years we would start every project from scratch - building up all of the UI and workflows from a completely blank app. Over time we figured out that we could make our process much more efficient and cut down on development time by standardizing things that are common among apps. As the result, we now start almost every app with a foundation that we call “Canvas”. It’s fully responsive, comes with a complete set of styles, and includes things like sign-up/log-in, dynamic homepage creator, owner/admin portal, and much more. We’ve thought through every detail of this app and have now used it with 100+ clients.

We’re now releasing the Canvas app to the public, for free. We’re doing it because we want to help others build great apps without reinventing the wheel and also because in the future we plan to offer the ability to purchase custom, app-specific UI and functionality components that can be added on top of it. In addition, we are publishing a set of standards and best practices that we follow when building apps, which should be helpful in ensuring that your app has a solid structure.

Here’s the link to the new portal, which includes the ability to create a Canvas app as well as a whole bunch of other building resources. Here’s a video that shows how to create an app.

Please feel free to comment on this thread with any questions/issues - we’ll make sure to monitor it.

Hope you find it useful!

Vlad
AirDev

louisadekoya · July 17, 2018, 5:12pm

This is an incredibly generous contribution to the platform. Having had some exposure to the Canvas app previously, I can honestly say that I think it is going to be a game changer for the Bubble platform and community. Thank you AirDev.

zach · July 17, 2018, 5:36pm

Will I be able to build a page and add it to an app I’m already working on

vlad · July 17, 2018, 5:54pm

@zach - this will only work for creating a new app, after which you can take a page from the new app and move it to your existing app. In the future we plan to offer the ability to add pages to existing apps but only those that were built using Canvas as the foundation, because all of the styles need to match up.

zach · July 17, 2018, 6:43pm

So the transfer needs to be with another canvas app if I already have a bubble app not the canvas I won’t be able to transfer a page from the canvas to my app

vlad · July 17, 2018, 6:47pm

@zach - yes, you can transfer a page from Canvas to your existing app. Just keep in mind that the styles won’t match up, so the page will look differently.

vincent56 · July 17, 2018, 8:06pm

This is a great resource and a awesome insight into your company and the way you approach things.

Question: If I create an app through Canvas, is there a manual step in setting up that app? As far as I’m aware, its not yet possible to create an app automatically? Are these sub apps to the canvas parent app?

vlad · July 17, 2018, 8:17pm

Thanks @vincent56 and good question. Any time someone creates an app through Canvas, we simply make a copy of the parent app and then add them as a collaborator (using custom automation that we’ve built). So, these aren’t sub-apps but clones - if we update something in the parent app tomorrow, those changes won’t be reflected in the app made today.

zach · July 17, 2018, 9:43pm

any way to delete a clone app and where are all the features i cloned an app but it brings me to the same bubble editor as always thought i build on some other editor and add already built stuff to it from there can copy with workflows to add to an app or use it from scratch

andersan · July 17, 2018, 10:48pm

Glad to hear the positive response from everyone! Let us know if you have any more questions.

Hey Zach - not sure if I understand your question, but here’s a go at a response:

The pages from the app or from your other apps can be copied between apps, but the styles for those apps won’t be copied.

To copy a page from the Canvas app to another app it takes quite a bit of style re-work. You’d need to either:

Change all of the styles to correspond to existing styles in your application, or
Manually re-create all of the necessary styles from Canvas in your application, and then manually assign them to the elements on the page you copied.

Does that make sense?

Chris
AirDev - Custom Software for Everyone (edited)

gnelson · July 18, 2018, 12:22am

So then technically these remain an airdev app. We’re just collaborators. We can’t actually take possession of them like a template?

vlad · July 18, 2018, 12:27am

@gnelson - nope, you’re a full owner of the app. We just need to add you as a collaborator to actually get it in your hands.

matthieu.b · July 18, 2018, 12:29pm

How can I double upvote this?!!

patricia · July 18, 2018, 1:24pm

I’d love to use Canvas because I’m about to start an app rebuild but every time I attempt to create an app and use my bubble email and a valid app name it throws errors. Can you help @vlad?

The second attempt you see as processing in the image above also went to red error.

matthieu.b · July 18, 2018, 2:37pm

Same here, ‘Error’ Status for the last 2 hours
I want to try!

ahaller · July 18, 2018, 3:46pm

Thanks for flagging @patricia and @matthieu.b. We’ll check it out and send you a response shortly! My hunch is that it’s related to Bubble’s (exciting) redesign.

patricia · July 18, 2018, 5:08pm

Read your Best Practice Guidelines. Really helpful. Thank you for sharing so much.

andersan · July 18, 2018, 5:45pm

@matthieu.b @patricia The tool is back up! Had to tweak it slightly due to the Bubble interface redesign

Thanks for your feedback! We’re glad you’re excited to use Canvas.

Chris
AirDev - Custom Software for Everyone

matthieu.b · July 18, 2018, 5:54pm

awesome. I test again

alonsocarballo · July 19, 2018, 4:08am

so awesome! thank you for this!