No-Code Web App Builder with Bootstrap Studio

Ideas
1

I have had Bootstrap Studio for ages. And I normally use Bootstrap Studio to design the UI for my websites and web apps. But I am just discovering the e-Commerce feature, and also Smart Forms. And I think it is brilliant what the Bootstrap Studio team has built here.

So my idea is so that Bootstrap Studio extends its capabilities so that users can use Bootstrap Studio to build web apps.

Of course, you need to support a lot of things to be a web app builder. But Bootstrap Studio can release small features, one at a time… for example…

  1. Start by allowing ReflowHQ to support general, non-ecommerce product information.

And in Bootstrap Studio, we can have components like Data Loop which will have a Data Source (much like product). And inside Data Loop we can drop in Data Item. And in Data Item, we can use Headings, Paragraph, Image, etc that links to the corresponding information in Data Item. Now we can start to display data, using card, rows and columns.

And similarly like Product, we can have a component to display a single item too.

Even without the rest of my ideas below, users can already build and manage websites like a business directory, book reviews, recommendation lists, etc.

  1. Then introduce Data Table Component

With Data Table, we can display the dataset using tables. Complete with Pagination.

  1. Extend Smart Forms to support saving data into ReflowHQ

Smart Forms is already great. And even greater if the data can be saved into a database in ReflowHQ, which now (when all implemented) supports general non-ecommerce data.

  1. Later introduce Authentication

I will be all excited when Bootstrap Studio can do suggestion number 1. And if Bootstrap Studio get to this feature, Bootstrap Studio is starting to become a complete no-code web app builder. And it has to also support Registration (another new feature for Smart Form), Profile Page, Forget Password, Password Update, etc.

  1. Automation & Workflow

This doesn’t even have to be implemented by Bootstrap Studio.

Bootstrap Studio can add Event Listener feature in ReflowHQ and have integration using Web Hooks. With Web Hooks I enter my external URL to be notified when certain things happen. And we can set this up to work with tools like Zapier or anything else.

Example of Events are like :

  • New data inserted
  • Data deleted
  • Data updated

Alright… I guess that’s my idea.

What do you think?

By the way, I don’t mind if web app feature requires a little extra financial commitment, or sold as an extra add-on to BootstrapStudio.

2 Likes
2

In my opinion already exist established open source software that fill the market of no code/low code app building, to mention Appsmith and Tooljet, I believe there are others but those two came to mind. And for automation there is n8n. On other hand I was surprised when BSS started supporting e-commerce, and, well… this stuff you are talking about might be possible right?

3

Yeah… I know about Budibase, AppSmith and Tooljet. But I haven’t had a chance to really check them out yet.

But yah… If Bootstrap Studio did eCommerce and Products with ReflowHQ, I am sure general database is also possible.

1 Like
4

Thank you for the suggestion! No-code is certainly an interesting area. The WordPress idea we shared recently could handle some of these use cases. Alternatively we could build an integration with existing open source projects like the ones @vasfvitor mentioned.

It all depends on whether a large number of users would use the functionality. We need to prioritize where we spend our time.

3 Likes
5

Understood. Do what you need to do. Bootstrap is a great tool that is easy to use and I always promote this to dev friends and students.

I guess, you can have this in the feature request bucket too. Maybe instead of extending ReflowHQ to support general data, supporting data from external sources such as Airtable and general REST API would be cool. I can quickly build a directory or job board with that.

1 Like