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Almost 10 years Bubble, what is going on with your responsive editor?

Question
#1

Let me preface this by saying that I love Bubble and think it is one of the best tools i have ever come across but… i can’t seem to understand how a product that has been around for almost 10 years has such a garbage responsive editor?

I am genuinely curious how a company that has funding and thousands of paying customers is so far behind the responsive design available in every other product? We’re all making web-apps here, you would think this would be a priority from day 1. What is more important on the bubble teams road map that is hindering the developmental improvement of a basic responsive design tool?

Again, love the product but responsive design with it is infuriating and such a time sink. I’ve heard a new system is coming out soon(?), but damn they’re taking their time.

5 Likes
#2
#3

That’s not what i’m asking, i can find that myself if necessary.

3 Likes
#4
#5

Yep, responsive editor coming soon. My initial question still remains unanswered, why has it taken so long to make improvements on such a basic feature?

3 Likes
#6

Bootstrapping for most of that time as a language of this nature would not have attracted investors demanding fast growth.

We are sitting on a transformative dev language built with that type effort.

Responsiveness works fine. Just built in a way that some folks dislike. Some others think it suits the overall take of the founders vision at the time.

My two cents.

3 Likes
#7

To add onto @cmarchan, I remember watching a talk the other day where @emmanuel explained that @josh and him initially built the responsive editor we have today to do what it does today because flexbox wasn’t a big thing back in 2012 when Bubble was founded. It also takes a team of people to rebuild the responsive editor back up, also keeping in mind that they don’t want to mess up current user’s apps.

4 Likes
#8

It definitely has a learning curve. Once you are more familiar with how it functions and are proactive in creating the elements from the beginning to be responsive the correct way, it doesn’t add much time to development.

In the beginning I could spend hours on my responsive design…now I know it well enough, I don’t spend more than a few minutes to just test it out and ensure all is working exactly as expected. I also clone good responsiveness for pages and other elements so I don’t need to fuss about too much and I can focus on development.

1 Like
#9

I’m not sure how basic it actually is, it’s probably way more complicated than we think.

At any rate they are in the middle of updating it, so…

#10

it is not (only) about the output which is still like 90% satisfactory. It is (for me at least) a lot about the editor itself. Many bugs. One example: Oftentimes Groups are not visible (irrespective of the “page status” toggle) in the sidebar. You just can’t find them. If you search for them they do not get displayed. Just the settings for them get displayed. You can’t see the effect of your changes this way (again: because you can’t see the group, the page is empty). This happens mostly when a group is nested (i.e. group within a group) and when pages get complex.

There are many many more issue that I have with the responsive editor. It just costs a lot of time when debugging weird behavior. And I agree with OP. It’s a slap in a paying customer’s face when you click “watch tutorial” and they show you a video from 10 years ago and you notice nothing has changed since then.

2 Likes
#11

Hi @Pat

All for it.

Other somewhat-similar platforms have received tens of millions in investment and we paying users have correct expectations for our money no doubt.

Webflow, as an example, plays in a territory that is conducive for faster growth. Their valuation is in the hundreds of millions last time I checked.

A programming language playing in the turf Bubble is playing, calls for these expectations to be cared for.

This is yet another challenge they face on top of the technical mountains they have solved, and continue to solve.

Bringing in investment beyond $6M at this point is an important decision they could possibly revisit.

“Nature of the beast” in offering a democratizing dev language I would submit. :grimacing:

1 Like
#12

Absolutely. I’ve been delaying a side project for months due to this.
The current solution is not good at all.

#13

What? Sounds like a spoiled child that doesn’t understand what they’re talking about…
Are you aware of what is responsiveness in general?
Or how it is to make a dynamic web page responsive with CSS?
Can you see some other software that handles responsiveness better?

Because in my experience I never used anything more user-friendly considering that responsiveness is the purest evil of web design…

#14

Haha I love how this always brings out the pitchforks on both sides of the aisle, and the same old tired chorus of “it works fine, you’re just dumb” sentiment.

Let’s face it, it’s not fine. It works, but it’s not fine. And the fact that the bubble team has made it a priority to rework the engine is far more of a testament to that fact than anything. I for one applaud them for working on improving it and bringing it up to speed with the competition. I shudder to think where we would be if the bubble devs had the mindset of “it’s fine, our users are just dumb”

#15

Responsive design in Bubble is a challenge due to absence of page structure. You can’t simply drop elements on a page and expect them to react responsively.

Most other nocode tools force you to use their layouts and therefore solving the issue of responsiveness. Bubble chose not to force layouts.

At Buildcamp, we hardly touch the responsive editor because we focus on page structure. It’s actually very simple once you grasp our grid system.

We teach this method at our design camps, link below.

1 Like
#16

Before you starting designing, you should be creating your wireframes that respond like the example below.

Once your breakpoints are in place, then you design.

Responsive grid
Responsive grid1280×748 3.33 MB

o

19 Likes
#17

100% the best way to do this.

#18

Apparently you can’t haha

#19

I just want the side menu to be readable!.. whats up with the tiny font, gezus. many improvements could be done… go check out the backlog in that idea thingy they made

sounds like bubble could use a little… bubble :wink:

I mean, can I help you guys/interns? I will do it for free

#21

Been thinking about this a lot lately and just wanted to drop my 2-cents on the topic. I’m likely wrong, but I’ve been confused by this for awhile and just want a place to vent / provide my take - so excuse my monologue.

I just started sinking my teeth into Bubble based on all the hype I’ve been hearing from the growing no code community; it sounded like a holy grail dream platform that could finally ‘do it all.’ Drastically cut down on app building, get us away from configuration/code and just start building.

My entrance into the no code movement came from my time with WebFlow, and having grown so smitten with the ease of their Editor. So powerful, yet well thought through - they’ve somehow taken an extremely hard problem (building a custom responsive front-end website), and have somehow built an easy-to-use UI that connects it all together. It’s seriously caused me to question why anyone would really whip out a code editor again for a front-end experience, save for large clients who need extreme customization. Unfortunately Webflow’s usefulness basically stops if you need to build a real App with a back-end.

So of course I tried Bubble next, with a loose anticipation that this would be Webflow with a real back-end builder. I thought I was doing something wrong when I logged in and read that they had JUST come out with a ‘Responsive Engine’… in late 2021. Then I actually started building with it and became even mor puzzled what everyone was raving about. I’m sure the Bubble team has heard this 100 times, is well aware of that feedback, and this is not to be a criticism at all. But I certainly was in a bit of shock, this was Bubble after all, the one platform that could one day rule them all; I was confused that everyone was raving about. I’ve now gotten used to the editor and it’s certainly not at all bad when you get the hang of it, but still - the front end builder, in earnest, is around 1/10 as efficient as something like WebFlow; and makes the normal building process a complete slog.

And there-in lies the core issue: Webflow and Bubble are attacking the same no-code problem from different ends.

Webflow is attacking the no-code from the Front-End, making the best damn in-browser frontend Editor in the world, yet they’ve barley even touched a back-end system, save for their Collections CMS and heavy use of plugins. Of course, their next big feature - workflows.

Bubble is attacking the no-code problem from the Back-End, making a truly remarkable back-end workflow builder (easy to see why it has a 10 year runway), and leaving the use with the feeling that the front-end editor is something of an afterthought. Of course, their next big feature - a redesigned front-end editor (see here).

One of them is going to get their first: One app with a front-end editor that is just as good as the back-end system.

It will be interesting to see who gets there first; Webflow has much more funding and overall brand polish, but they have a lonngggggg longgggg way to go to build something as robust as Bubble’s back-end editor. Bubble seems to be positioned the best; they’ve solved some the harder problems on the back-end, and a front-end editor seems to be the easier of the tasks (but by no means simple).

We’r so very close; and a really exciting time for the nocode movement, What my selfish fantasy would be is if Webflow or Bubble would purchase the other, and combine Webflows front-end editor to Bubble’s back-end workflow. That would just be Nirvana.

1 Like