By “plan” I mean thinking through the functionality of your app and how you will build it - e.g. requirements, data structure, pages, page layouts, behaviour, general architecture etc.
How do you plan your apps before you build?
- I don’t - I just jump right in and start building
- Good old pen and paper
- Spreadsheets and word processing software (MS Excel, Google Sheets, MS Word etc)
- Note-taking software
- Drawing tools (e.g. Visio, Lucidchart etc)
- Other software (add a comment with the name, if possible)
Airtable, figma (figjams), dbdiagram and chatgpt (customised gpt)
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I’m curious - is your customised GPT for Bubble answers specifically or more for general system design Q&A?
More focused on Bubble as that’s its own beast. I’ve fed it hundreds of DBs for each category and also update it with any takeaways from post mortems on Bubble projects.
I understood the OP to be about reqs, structure, and architecture. Design is a whole different bucket which I deal with differentl.
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Whimsical looks quite interesting. I had seen references to it but had never checked it out.
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Just jump right in 
. I use the canvas framework which is just as easy as drawing things in another app.
Then cleanup later when I live with it for a bit. IMHO people prematurely plan. We ain’t landing on Mars here.
+1 on whimsical. Although no design features
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This is certainly one school of thought and one that exists in traditional software development as well… With nocode tools like Bubble, it is especially easy to jump right in and for smaller projects, there usually isn’t much cost to doing so, because you can easily correct any mistakes.
There’s something to be said for at least some basic planning though, especially if you can do so with a tool that isn’t too complex or overbearing. You can play around with multiple ideas before implementing; choose the best approach for features; create a reference for future testing; validate ideas and save yourself wasted effort etc. I have built featherspec to try to do exactly these things in a light-touch tool and it is interesting to see and compare what other tools people are using.
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Before a new app or a major update, I will plan out a DB structure in notes. Start with the data types, then the fields. If complex, I’ll plan the privacy rules too.
That’s about it really. I don’t have much set up time on new apps, because I have a pretty dang cool template for my agency that has all sorts of nifty stuff like reuseable element buttons, tags, RGs, group focuses, dashboard… design is pretty easy to standardise.
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I use the wireframing tools to get the ideas up quickly a lot, then just back into bubble. No need for special design features honestly.
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Interesting. For me, the absolute minimum set consists of a list of requirements (that I can test against later); a data structure (usually as a diagram or just a list of tables and fields) and as you say, wireframes for my pages. Lately, I have found my self-invented (I believe) page definition canvas quite invaluable too.
