Thanks for creating this new category for going from Bubble to Wappler @George!
I’ll share just a little bit of my early experiences exploring Wappler, from the perspective of someone coming from Bubble, in the hopes that it will help others bridge the knowledge gap.
If you guys are like me, when analyzing if Wappler would be a good fit, I’m looking for the equivalent pieces of functionality that I have in Bubble. I have not come across anything that is not possible in Wappler that I have in Bubble, but I am just getting to know Wappler. My understanding is that you can drop in custom code if you really get stuck on something but so far even the out of the box functionality is the same or better in Wappler.
There’s a lot of good documentation throughout the forum (thanks @Teodor!) that I bookmark. Also, there’s helpful documentation in the dedicated spot https://docs.wappler.io/. So far, I’ve found the most helpful aspects of the documentation in comparing to Bubble to be the server-side components https://docs.wappler.io/t/server-connect-introduction/2835. Going through each example is time well spent and will help you find equivalent Bubble functionality in Wappler.
Most helpful (for me) functionality covered is:
- Getting the database connected for use in workflows
- How to set up Wappler workflows
- Creating repeating groups
- Displaying database data in repeating groups
- Displaying dynamic text in text elements
- Displaying data in a popup
You’ll notice that the above functionality items use Bubble terminology. One of the more difficult things has been the change in terminology, after all, how can we even know what to look for in the documentation/forum if we don’t know what the equivalent is called in Wappler? Here are a few terms from Bubble translated to their use in Wappler to get you off on the right foot.
| Bubble | Wappler |
|---|---|
| Workflow tab | Server connect |
| Workflows | Server actions |
| Workflow actions | Action steps |
| Do a search for | Query |
| List | Array |
| Repeating groups | tables w/repeat regions “make repeat children” |
| Elements | Components (From Bootstrap 4 Framework) |
| Group | Column |
| Text element | Paragraph component |
| Input element | Text input component, Forms |
| Popup | Modal |
| Start/Edit Workflow | Dynamic/Static Events (on components) |
| Conditions | Dynamic Attributes (on components) |
Also, it’s important to understand that the starting layout structure on a page usually looks like this: container > row > column.
The framework to understand is Bootstrap 4. Here’s a good crash course on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnCmSXCZEpU
Hopefully that helps people get started faster!
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