The Next Step in No-Code App Building?

Most no-code platforms offer you two choices when you decide to build an app - you can start from scratch or you can use a pre-built "template" app and modify it to fit your needs. And most platforms also provide "plug-ins" to perform specific functions not built into the platform, such as connecting to third-party web services. But what if you create an application, then decide that you want to add a new feature but don't know how to go about building it?

Bubble.io is working on providing a solution for those situations (and a couple of other platforms are starting to move in the same direction). Bubble's answer is "Blocks", self-contained mini-apps that you can drop into your existing app.  For example, maybe you have an app for your hiking club where members can post photos and videos from their latest hiking trip along with information on where they went, where to stay, best places to eat, and so on. Only now you would like to have everyone go on a hike together and you want to do an online survey to get ideas on where to go.

You don't have much time to make changes to your app if you're going to get this trip in before winter and you're not even sure how to set up a survey. If you built your app on Bubble, you could go to Zeroqode (www.zeroqode.com) and buy their "WeVote" block for $35, set up a new page in your app, and drop the WeVote block into that page. With a little modification of your database you could have a survey up and running almost immediately.

You can find a number of other "blocks" on Z eroqode, including a "Projects Board" block (to keep track of personal or team tasks), an FAQ block (to provide users with more information about your products or services), and a Messaging block that includes a login/signup page, a user profile page, and a conversation page.

Note: See the previous post "Blocks withing Blocks" for an example of how Betty Blocks is working on this same concept.