Bubble.io Platform Limitations

Boost · 2020-08-01T00:47:03.819Z

Hey Bubble freelancers,

I’ve been running into some sort of issue on almost every project that I’ve been working on so far.

Some of those include:

-Responsive height (relative to a repeating group)
-Creating a repeating group of input forms that will go away when you leave the page (pretty much custom states with nested data for repeating groups)
-Isolated data type for time (am/pm)
-Responsive alignment issues for text above repeating group columns
-Case sensitive searches
-Animations for specific groups in cells in repeating groups
-Miscellaneous Bubble.io bugs

Those are just a couple, and there’s work-arounds to some, but it takes a lot longer and they’re not ideal to have.

How often do you run into issues with platform limitations, and what types of things do you look for (in terms of difficulty) before accepting projects?

Do you ever turn down projects for that very reason?

Or hire developers to make plugins?

Or just build something that doesn’t require those features?

Curious to hear your thoughts

If there’s anything I missed, feel free to add more to the list. That way, we can give Bubble ideas for future improvements

Jici · 2020-08-01T01:35:34.696Z

Rarely face limitations (in some case I will create plugins). But there’s a lot of thing that you can learn (like RG responsiveness and how date work) reading the forum here to find solution and how it work. I agree that some stuff (like responsiveness) are not easy to handle at first.

jon2 · 2020-08-01T01:50:11.629Z

There are quite a few tricks to understanding responsive design on the web and bubble is no exception to this. In many ways bubble can be more of a challenge since its editor and the platform really lends itself to a ‘pixel-perfect’ design philosophy. You can get bubble to behave the way you want with understanding how to nest groups, hide them, use ‘dummy’ groups, etc.

That being said, a piece of advice I once received (that seems more and more sage with each passing day) is to consider building separate interfaces for mobile and desktop and to forget trying to be responsive altogether.

No, it is not lean. Many would laugh at this, but ultimately if this is causing you pain, you may find that you don’t fight the platform or have to perform ninja-level trickery to achieve what you want and may actually save time.

You’ve got a lot of questions, which is great. If you find that your obsession for these details is driving you mad, you might want to put that energy to understanding the basics of HTML/CSS and how the document elements flow and stack. It will help you with bubble or whatever you want to do.