Bubble is an all-in-one tool, both a visual programming platform and hosting provider. You use the Application Editor to build your apps right in your browser, then the cloud platform hosts and runs them.
The more you use Bubble, the more you will develop your own principles for how to start, build, maintain, and scale your application. Here are some basic principles to keep in mind as you build your app:
1. Visualize your data.
Identify the problem you want to solve and the information you'll need to store and track. For example, if we want to make a marketplace that sells board games, we will need to store users and their information, such as their email and name, and the board games they want to sell.
Bubble allows you to quickly create your data types, which you can modify at any point in time later as your app expands and you need to store and track more things.
2. Add content to your database in the Data Tab.
Once you set up the data types for your app, such as "Board games," then you can add entries to those data types in their database, such as "Monopoly."
These entries then become the content we can use to test or deploy our app. A fun way to think about adding entries to our database is that our Board Game Marketplace now has inventory.
3. Create and design pages for your app.
An application can have as many pages as you need. A page is generally useful for one purpose, such as the sign up page, about page, and home page. For our marketplace example, we would create a user profile, product page, and a page to upload new products.
4. Design your app by dragging and dropping pre-built elements directly on to pages.
Pages do not have to be pixel perfect right away. Our pre-built elements, such as text, buttons, shapes, videos, and icons, help you get started, and the beauty of Bubble is that you can always go back and perfect it as you go.
With even just a wireframe for your design, you can get your application out the door and into users' hands. You can build the same applications as what you can build traditionally much faster because you are always once click away from your data and your design.
5. Connect your data and design with workflows.
With your data and design ready to go, you can start to define what your app should do when a user interacts with the page.
Workflows run these step-by-step actions that bring your app to life.
For example, on our listing page, we would create a workflow for users to upload a new board game for sale. When users click our "Submit" button, this workflow would start and add a new entry to our Board Games database.
With these principles in mind, you can leverage Bubble to build your idea. You can combine data, design, and logic operations, so you can create both simple and complex apps with ease.
Bubble is powerful and open-ended, and these principles are your starting guide to building your first application.
Challenge: Create your own data type, add some entries to it, and then display that data type on its own page.