Introduction

Welcome to Canvas!

Canvas is a framework based on Bubble that non-coders can use to very rapidly build powerful and beautiful web applications. The framework is built and maintained by AirDev, an ultra-rapid software development firm based in San Francisco.

Canvas doesn't require any previous software knowledge or experience. But learning how Bubble and Canvas work does require significant time investment to get to the point when you can build something great. If you are starting from scratch, you should plan on spending at least a few weeks learning both of the tools.

What is Canvas?

Canvas is a development framework based on Bubble that combines 3 things:

1. Base Template: This app template contains features that almost every application needs - things like marketing pages, user management, admin portal, and so much more.

2. Pages & blocks: These are smaller UI & UX components that can be added to the Base Template in order to build almost anything that you might imagine. They also provide consistency to your app's design, so pages you add to the app don't look out of place.

3. Standards & best practices: These will help you make sure your application's functionality, design, and integrations are properly built and result in the best product possible.

Why Canvas?

There is a major shift happening that's changing not only how software is built, but who builds it. Specifically, no-code tools like Bubble now allow non-coders to build complex software applications without writing a single line of code.

At AirDev, we've spent years building software without code for companies ranging from one-person startups to Fortune 50 enterprises. Through our work we've identified common patterns that exist in applications and turned those into this framework. Here's what the framework helps us do:

1. Build and launch faster: Because large parts of both functionality and design are templatized, we don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel and instead focus only on the parts that are different about a particular application.

2. Build better products: We've spent a lot of time thinking through and iterating on our templates and standards. When we use them we can be sure that the application will look good and work well.

3. Build in a transferrable way: Because our products follow the same framework, they're much easier to transfer between developers who know the framework. This is critical for long-term projects that require lots of people to be involved.

We're excited to share the Canvas framework with people and teams outside of AirDev, we hope you find it useful!