Idea Critique: Zapp, an app that builds apps
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Posted Jan 9, 2019, 1:24 AM UTC
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Hello! This is just an idea at this point and I don't have an actual project to share, which is why I thought it may not fit under the guidelines of rules 2, 3 and 4.
All of the projects posted in the feedback thread were, well, projects, and required URLs, so I thought mine wouldn't fit there.
If you'd like me to delete this and re-post somewhere else, just let me know and I'll get it moved. Thanks for your patience.
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Don't let others posting full projects dissuade you from using the appropriate channels to gain support.
Doing so will hopefully inspire others to follow your lead and share their own ideas they are trying to figure out how to make a reality.
Definitely repost to the Weekly thread and to our Discord. =)
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I'll definitely do that, thanks again for your help!
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The problem with these types of "direct editing" programs is that the finished products all tend to look more or less the same. Take for example, Wix, or Google Sites. You can have slight variety, but many of the toolbars/buttons tend to be reused. Additionally, this would only target a very specific niche of people, those who want to design their own app without learning to code. If you decide to do it, I'm not sure it would be able to turn much profit and you may just end up with a product with no value.
You make a good point, and I may not have made it clear enough in my outline, but I think Zapp would stand out from the crowd here.
Essentially the codebase would be as customizable as if you were editing via text (and even allow direct source editing if needed). This amount of customizability would likely be overwhelming for the non-technical crowd though, so I could see there being a sort of "granularity" setting that allows the user to exert more or less control over the app.
Just want an input so you can start sending messages? We've got great defaults. Want to add a float: right; to this div inside of your message box? Crank the granularity up to eleven and go to town or edit the source html/css if you need to.
It's a lot of ground to cover, but I honestly can't believe no one's built a decent GUI for webapp development yet, direct source editing takes the average dev way, way too long to do.
Well if you're looking to do this, it's going to take a very long time for a possibility of a decent profit. While my knowledge of apps/coding is limited, I would suggest trying to create something that can take advantage of the virality factor, like a little mobile game or photo editing software.
I’ll keep your advice in mind, thanks for the pointers!