WEBIX BLOG

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Webix Hint is a widget for creating guided tours through apps. This is especially suitable for apps with a lot of contents and complex forms. With Hint, you can create guides with several steps. On each step, users will see a focused area and instructions how to work with the specific element of the app.

I’ll show you:

• Basic Hint usage Live demo >>
• Highlighting some areas and making others work as action targets Live demo >>
• Creating tours for many views Live demo >>
• Resuming tours from any step Live demo >>

For demonstration, I’ll create a mock service for ordering medications online. I’ll deal with the UI aspect only.

The new version 5.1 of Webix UI library is released. Now you can enjoy Grid layout and Dashboard with convenient arrangement, on-the-fly number formatting for text inputs, and multiselection for Calendar and DatePicker and renewed Query Builder. Let’s look closely at the novelties of Webix 5.1.

Watch this brief overview and read the details below.

The New Webix Jet has come to light with the latest release of Webix UI library.

Webix Jet is a micro framework for single-page applications created with Webix UI components. It allows you to divide app code into modules as well as combine and reuse diverse UI components. The framework provides a solution for device-responsive apps that can be opened on both Desktop and mobile touch devices that run iOS, Android, etc.

With Webix Jet, you can easily create and develop perfect applications with loosely-coupled code. Sounds intriguing? Let’s look closer at what’s new in Webix Jet 1.0 and recap the useful features that migrated from the previous version.

You can also read Jet GitBook and download demos from GitHub.

New Webix 5.0 includes the JavaScript GeoChart widget created with Google Maps API. GeoChart is a pretty neat service for creating map charts for presenting data associated with countries and regions. I’ll show you how to use the main features of the widget to create an interactive world map. If you are not yet familiar with the widget, I hope that GeoChart will become your faithful friend after I introduce it to you. If you already love GeoChart as much as I do, you will probably gain a better insight into things you can do with it.

This is a guest post by Dragos Stoica.

The initial task

My objective was to design and implement a simple application allowing me to manage my freelance business. The application is called iFact and is available on github. The basic activity consists in getting contracts with clients, performing the work or service and invoicing the client. Also, I needed to manage the invoice flow and to have a minimal dashboard for cash flow control. The volume of invoices is low: from one to a couple of invoices per month. The number of clients and contracts per client is low, it means 5 to 10 clients with 1-3 contracts per client, normally one single contract active at any given moment in time.

Webix team is proud to introduce the newly released Webix 5.0. It includes the updated Webix Jet framework, three new widgets and some useful feature upgrades, such as export of widget styles to Excel. Enjoy!

This week’s adventure is another visit to the kingdom of the Most Recognizable User Interfaces. Trello provides one of the best interfaces for task management. A single glance reveals all the latest tasks, who’s working on them and what tasks are planned. Let’s look at how the same interface can be created with Webix UI library.

The kingdom is populated by UI architects and builders, so during this trip, you’ll watch the construction of a small but amazing castle. The main unit for the castle will be Webix Kanban. You can see the live demo and get the blueprints from GitHub. And now the adventure begins.

As a rule, companies work with a lot of data and already use Excel files in their workflows. Among other things, business process automation requires shared access to files. For sharing, Excel files can be published as web pages or uploaded to web services like Google Docs. And still, there is a problem because such services do not allow you to embed spreadsheets into web applications and web sites. I’ll show you how Webix UI library can help you with this task.

Software can make your routine simpler and with better results. For instance, making clear and good-looking reports would turn into a real battle without a helpful tool. One of these tools is Excel, a well-known mega-beast of valiant deeds and immortal glory. Yet, if business-warriors have to make some custom report, it’s developer-warriors who get their share of the job. This might be a problem. Every time you have to involve extra people in routine procedures, it’s costly and time-consuming (to say nothing of the fact that developer-warriors have a lot of other battles to fight).

It would be good to design a report engine — another mega-beast that is as powerful and helpful. The complex widget SpreadSheet, one of the components of the Webix UI library, is a relevant core element for a decent mega-beast to win the deathmatch and save your end-users from extra expenses. Join me, developer-warriors, and I’ll show you how to enhance SpreadSheet and make it serve business-warriors well in their battles. Together we’ll create a spreadsheet-based report engine that will allow your end-users to make a custom report themselves by choosing templates from a list and editing them to their liking.

An app logic well done is only half a job accomplished. The other half is designing such a UI that would enhance the functionality of the app and make it rational and easy to navigate. Besides, it’s important to create a nice-looking interface to make apps recognizable and visually appealing.

Gmail has one of the most recognizable interfaces on the web. It’s neat and clean and can be used to rationally organize the massive app contents. In fact, Gmail UI can be used not only for email management but for other tasks as well. If you would like to know how to recreate such an interface and don’t know where to begin (or in case you are just curious), follow me. I’ll show you how to implement Gmail’s approach to designing interfaces with the Webix UI library.