We have received many emails from people who have not yet tried Enlide, asking us how we are different from other widget builders.

In fact, Enlide is different from them in many ways, here is the main difference. Other services allow users to create static applications. They could be compared to graphical or template editors.

Our vision is different. Our audience are developers. With Enlide, developers get access to powerful tools to develop dynamic widgets, webapps, and blur the line between desktop and web oriented development. Easier said, comparing those platforms and Enlide is like comparing Dreamweaver and Visual Studio ... Enlide is an online IDE based on adapted compilers, and a collaborative development platform for developers.

Enliders know why Enlide is unique ;-)

This panel is dedicated to project changes monitoring and restoring.



The Console tab is the Enlide information and debug output. It displays client-server exchanges : logs, raw data, error code, ... It shows your project status on the server side.

The History tab is the memory of your project. It displays all actions you have performed. Any creation, update or deletion on an element is pushed in the history grid.

Each entry of the history grid is composed of :
- Mode : context where the change occured (Design, Code, Management)
- Executed action
- Targeted item : short description of the component that changed
- Changes : modification description
- Old and new value : value that changed (if available)
- Date and time
- and the useful 'Back in time' link which allow you to instantly restore any previous project state.

You can revert any change at any time. It's an useful smart undo that will prevent you from data lost and a lot of headaches ...

Following the last post, here is the right side panel description.

In the last post, we saw how to add components to the design view. Now, let's focus on components customization and management.

Here is how you can easily customize your components appearence with the Properties tab. For an easy use, component properties are categorized. The properties tab always displays the properties of the currently selected object on the design view. The properties displayed depends on the type of component being edited.

In the below screenshot, the selected component has six properties in background category.



There are three way to edit a property :

- in place : change directly the property value by entering text value,
- selection : use an adapted control. Depending on the property value type, a control helps you set a new value, for example a selectable list, a slider ...
- complex : use an extended view of the property value. Complex values can be visualized with an intuitive view. For example, for color editing, a color picker is displayed.

When many components are on the design view, they often overlap each other and it becomes difficult to visually select a component. It's necessary to index all components.

The components tree is dedicated to this task and is available in the Inspector tab. The component tree is a hierachical view of all created components. It reflects the content of the design view. By selecting a component in the tree, you also selected it in the design view and could perform all management tasks.

With those two new tools, the design process is now simple and easy.

The left side panel is dedicated to all data used by your project.

By now, Enlide manages four types of element :

- templates : a template assembles components and can be easily re-used within your source code,
- snippets : a snippet is a reusable part of code. It includes all non-graphical elements,
- libraries : a library is an external template or snippet,
- components : a component is a UI element available from the Enlide and Community components library.

Thoses elements are dispatched in two tabs: the Explorer tab and the Components tab.


The Explorer tab allows you to navigate and perform all tasks on your workspace elements.

The Components tab displays icons for components that you can add to Enlide projects. Each component can be dragged and dropped onto a design view that we will see later on. Components are grouped by category and each one can be expanded or collapsed. Last but not least, the exclusive Community item gives you a direct access to a growing shared components database.

This feature, among others available, reminds you that Enlide is a Social IDE. And by social we means always connected to unlimited resources.

In next posts, we will introduce parts of Enlide Interface and here are our thought about user interface design.



The end of GUI

     Early user interfaces, or Graphical User Interface (GUI), were based on operating systems multitasking ability without any Human-Computer Interaction model.

     But studies have shown that users usually keep a single window up at a time on their desktop, and the internet user experience is multipages based : users go from page to page. That's the reason why so many UI are not user friendly.

The multipage navigation is visually close to the GUI way of displaying windows : each action could trigger a pop up which in turn could trigger.... But the perceived complexity of application is tightly coupled with the number of modal pop-up.

Then should we re-implement multi-window UI paradigm when designing web applications ?



The Rise of AISP

     At Enlide, we believe in AISP UI : All In a Single Page User Interface. Ajax has bring a lot of features to html pages : drag and drop, auto-completion ... But one of its interesting aspect, it's the ability to group all ui element in a single page. It allows to drasticly reduce the number of modal windows and to improve the interactivity.

     Most developers have faced the problem of grouping controls within forms, pages, or windows and set-up an efficient user workflow. AISP is the answer : dispatch your UI element on a single page and display them when needed. Modal pop-up are reduced to minimum and usability can be extended with each Ajax features.

A simple paradigm applied to application UI design.

The top or side bar of any web service usually show pretty well its main features, so here is Enlide's top bar.

Enlide is composed of several spaces. When you log into your account, you enter your personal space : My projects.

Left side tabs are spaces used before you create a project. Right side tabs are spaces used within projects.


Your Personnal space contains your collection of projects and helps you perform your management tasks : list, import, export, set up, delete projects ... every project features available.


The Project creation space is dedicated to project creation, of course. Within this space you define a new project with common project settings like title, description but also extended features like platforms target, or visibility attributes within the community.


The Work space is where you are going to spend a lot of time. It is the main part of Enlide magic. Within this space, design, customize, code, generate and deploy your project.


The Community space helps you enlighten the community with your shared assets. It is the rallying point of all Enlide users. Here is the big picture : enhance your project with community assets, code, components, webapps and then share anything your want to extend the Enlide Community.


And finally, the necessary Preferences space helps you make Enlide better fit your needs and environment.


Next ... the Designer !

We have been working so hard and here we are !

We are so proud to introduce Enlide.

Enlide is a sIDE (Social Integrated Development Environment) for webapps and softwares. It links software experiences, web technologies and social network to provide developpers an ultimate development tool. It may change the way you design applications like it did for us and currently involved developers.

The private beta is now open. For the time being, this beta is available to a restricted group of users but we will open it gradually.

We will give you regularly information about our work and the features of Enlide, so you can give us your feedback and help us to quickly release the first public version.

As soon as you get an access to Enlide, you will be able to share your feeling and improvement requests within our community.

Ignition !
The Enlide Team