Every individual and business familiar with internet knows the value of a professionally developed website. It could be a personal portfolio-cum-resume or the online front to your business. Creating your website is no easy job, from hunting down good web developers to the time it takes to get the job done, implying you haven’t lost your sanity throughout the process; and that is exactly where Website Builders come to the rescue, allowing novice to develop their websites and professionals to do what they’ve been doing in only a fraction the time.
Here we will discuss one of the most popular website builders available online namely WIX (www.wix.com, more specifically we will look into a certain extension of WIX released in the public as Wix Code. Before we jump into what makes Wix Code so important let us take a moment to look into WIX and what makes it better than other modern day Content Management Systems (Website builders). Wix basically allows any novice to create a professional website with only prerequisites being a computer with an internet connection. Wix provides its users with both development tools and web hosting for free (There’s a premium ad-free version too if you really want to go professional).
With WIX all it takes is to create an account on Wix.com and click a number of buttons, and if that sounds too overwhelming to you remember that WIX walks you through all those steps with its user friendly interface.
What Wix Already Offered
WIX is by the most user-friendly Web Development tool that you can get your hands on for free. With WIX, there’s no need to download anything, or host your Web site content and database, if you’re looking for creating solution for your website. You just head on to WIX.COM and create a free account there. Your website is literally a few clicks away. If you consider WIX vis-a-vis other modern day Website Builders or Content Management Systems (i.e WordPress, Drupal, Joomla), it wins hands down.
Wix Code To The Rescue
Wix Code is the much needed extension to Wix from designer’s perspective. Wix provided everything that you’d need to create your own personal website. However, being so user-friendly, and having every template pre-packaged obviously comes with it’s own price. Since Wix is geared towards the naive everyday user, it restricts the user from going behind the scenes. This lack of freedom and restriction would be frowned upon by professional developers who prefer tweaking their products insteading of ‘clicking’ their way through the development process. Developers and Designers who would want to customize their Websites and Web Applications have long complained about this.
It’s a bird…..It’s a Plane….It’s Wix Code. Wix Code is the development centric extension to WIX. Simply put Wix Code allows ‘people who know what they are doing’ do it in the most efficient way giving them more control over the platform. This allows the Web Designers to leverage the visual components of WIX-EDITOR while having more control over their creation making the development of professional and robust Web Applications just a trick of hand. Some notable Wix Code features include a built-in database to manage your content, dynamic pages (we will go the details in just a moment), and repeating layouts populated with database content to create dynamic websites. Wix Code provides developers with an open playground on the back-end while the design features the stunning state of the art visuals WIX already provides. For a developer, Wix Code provides the best of both worlds.
What you get with Wix Code
Wix Code has changed the world of Web Designing with a surprise. The best part about this is that everything -design, hosting, application framework- is already included letting designers direct their attention towards that which truly matters. Wix Code provides many features, following are just a few prominent ones:
Hassle Free Deployment – It may sound too good to be true but Wix Code provides you an in-built database, Javascript based Backend Environment all hosted on Wix’s own secure cloud. This saves the Web Designer the hassle of connecting to multiple servers (for the Web Content and databases) and making sure they are online. If you’ve been into Web Development for a while, chances are you’re already been stuck in a situation where one remote server goes down making the whole application act painfully awkward. With Wix Code’s Web Applications having everything in one place, carefree development is promoted.
Collecting User Input – User uploaded data puts the dynamics in all modern websites. This data might be collected from the user by a number of ways. Creating forms, review sections, and other data-collecting-means is just a few clicks away with Wix-Code. This data gets stored in Wix in-built database from where it can be reused and deployed anywhere in your web Application. Data collection has never been this easy!
Dynamic Pages – By far the most important feature of Wix-Code is the freedom and ease it provides with creating dynamic pages where YOU get to decide to the type of data you want to put in any individual page of the created design. Each page will have it’s own custom URL and UNIQUE content that it pulls from the Wix Database.
Custom Interactions – Dynamic pages is not where Wix Code magic ends, it’s only where it has begun. Wix Code comes with a feature called ‘Custom Interactions’ that lets you, the developer; anchor your own javascript code to any of your page elements either timed or event-triggered.
Putting it modestly, Wix Code has put Wix on par with mainstream CMS eliminating the ‘not enough freedom’ rants Wix previously had to hear from the developer community. The best part is if you get stuck somewhere you can always visit the friendly Wix online community or head to hundreds of tutorials freely available on the Web. Wix Code is future of Web Development, redefined.