The MUI library for React has over 76k stars on GitHub and is one of the most improved UI libraries. You can build an incredibly stylish application in a short amount of time with pre-styled components, as well as tune and expand these components according to your needs. It is based on Leaner Style Sheets (LESS), a CSS development extension.

You can also install the MUI into your application using yarn:

yarn add @material-ui/core

or npm:

npm i @material-ui/core

Why use Material UI?

Here are the reasons why developers prefer to integrate MUI into their applications:

• Pre-designed UI components. MUI supplies multiple pre-designed components from which you easily approach and attach to your application, enabling an attractive, easy-to-use, and visually engaging design and rapid implementation. 
• Material Design. Material Design is a well-thought-out design system that describes the value and use cases of components. With Material Design, for example, you can use Material Icons, meaning choosing icons that match your design system.
• Adjustable theme. MUI provides simple installation and adjustment themes to use and globally implement for all components available to you, making it a highly functional and dynamic experience. By doing so, the theme color of the component, information about the palette, surface properties, and some other styles can be customized, meaning that all your components can be consistent.
• Well-structured documentation. MUI has understandable and well-structured documentation, which includes guides with code examples to practice with.
• Widespread support. MUI has great support for fixing bugs and issues, due to its constantly updatable library. In small releases, for all issues found, the team provides fixes. As a user, you can participate in influencing what additions to the library will be made in the future. The team sends a feedback survey to all library developers every year to fix any issues and make the Material UI more usable, also you can tweet them feedback on the official account: @MaterialUI.
• Community. Here you can find basic links with support and examples of using the MUI.

Who uses Material UI and its integrations?

Node.js, React, Next.js, Emotion, etc, represent some of the most popular tools that are integrated with Material-UI. About 214 companies use Material UI in their technology stacks, here are some of them:

• UNIQLO
• Medium
• Scale
• Frontend
• Google
• SkyQuest Tech Stack

How to create your Material UI React application using the Flatlogic Platform

There are two ways to build your application on the Flatlogic Platform: 

1. Create a simple and clear frontend application, generated by the CLI framework, 

or

2. Build a CRUD application with frontend+backend+database.  

Creating your CRUD application with Flatlogic

Step 1. Choosing the Tech Stack

In this step, you’re setting the name of your application and choosing the stack: Frontend, Backend, and Database.

Step 2. Choosing the Starter Template

In this step, you’re choosing the design of the web app. Here you can find the Material Template for your application.

Step 3. Schema Editor

In this part you will need to know which application you want to build, that is, CRM or E-commerce, also in this part you build a database schema i.e. tables and relationships between them.

If you are not familiar with database design and it is difficult for you to understand what tables are, we have prepared several ready-made example schemas of real-world apps that you can build your app upon modification:

• E-commerce app;
• Time tracking app;
• Books store;
• Chat (messaging) app;
• Blog.

Afterwards, you can deploy your application and in a few minutes, you will get a fully functional CMS for your React Application with Material Design.

Suggested Articles:

• What is Angular – Flatlogic Tech Glossary
• What is Webpack – Flatlogic Tech Glossary
• How to Create a Vue Application [Learn the Ropes!]

The post What is Material UI? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

Webpack is also able to handle multiple other tasks:

• Assists in pulling your resources all together;
• Monitors changes and re-runs tasks;
• Can transpile using Babel’s next-generation JavaScript to an older JavaScript standard (ES5), allowing users to use the latest JavaScript features without worrying about whether or not their browser supports them;
• Does CoffeeScript to JavaScript translation;
• Can converse embedded images into data: URI;
• can require() CSS files;
• Works with Hot Module Replacement;
• May Perform Tree Shaking;
• Can split output file into several files so slow page load due to oversized JS-file is prevented.

You can install Webpack globally or locally for each project. Using yarn:

yarn global add webpack webpack-cli

Or using npm:

npm i -g webpack webpack-cli

How to start with Webpack

First of all, to start working with the webpack you need to know the following:

• Webpack is a Javascript library, meaning you need to install it with the npm package manager. If you don’t have a package.json file in the core of your application, enter the following command into your terminal: `npm init -y`. But if you do then: `npm install –save-dev webpack`.
• Webpack has one big file called ‘webpack.config.js’ which will give you the ability to manage the bundling process. You need to create a webpack.config.js file in your root directory and paste the next basic code into it:

You also need to define the following properties within the module.exports object.

• Next, you need to install loaders – npm special libs – and update the webpack.config.js to add some other files instead of JS.
• Plugins are almost the same as loaders but under steroids. They can do what downloaders can’t. For example, on top of everything else, Webpack is built on a system of plugins that you use in your configuration file.

Modes of Webpack

The modes ( introduced in version 4) configure the environment in which Webpack will work. The mode can be configured for development (dev) or production (prod). The default mode is production.

Dev mode:

• less optimized than production;
• runs faster;
• doesn’t strip comments;
• provides deeper error messages and workarounds;
• makes debugging much easier.

Prod Mode

Prod mode is slower than dev mode since it needs to build a better-optimized bundle. Generated JavaScript file is smaller by size, as many things from development mode are missing in it. 

To start the Webpack you can also with npm or yarn:

• npm run build
• yarn run build or yarn build.

Conclusion

Webpack requires considerable training. But it is a tool well worth learning, considering the amount of time and effort it may save. Webpack doesn’t solve all issues. But it does fix the bundling issue.

Articles you may like:

• What is Git and Why Use It – Flatlogic Tech Glossary
• How to Create a Vue Application [Learn the Ropes!]
• What is PHP – Flatlogic Tech Glossary
• What is Hosting and Domain Name – Flatlogic Blog

The post What is Webpack? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

Node.js is powered by Google’s Chrome JavaScript engine V8, with web applications event-driven in an asynchronous way. Also, Node.js uses the world’s largest ecosystem of open source libraries – npm (The Node Package Manager).

The npm modules idea is a publicly available set of reusable components, which are available through simple installation via an online repository, with both version and dependency management.

The architecture of Node.js work

• Node.js has a limited set of thread pools of requests processing.
• Node.js queues requests as they come in.
• Then comes the Single-Threaded Event Loop – the core component that waits indefinitely for requests.
• The loop picks up the request in the queue as it arrives and verifies if it requires an I/O blocking operation. 
• If the request doesn’t have a blocking I/O operation, the loop processes it and sends a response.
• If the request appears to have a blocking operation, the loop creates a thread from the internal thread pool to control the request. 
• As soon as the blocking task is handled, the event loop continues monitoring blocking requests and queues them. That’s called a non-blocking nature.

Why use Node.js

• Single-Threaded Event Loop Model. Node.js uses a ‘Single-Threaded Event Loop Model’ architecture that manages multiple requests submitted via clients. While the main loop of events is performed by a single thread, the I/O work in the background is performed by separate threads because the I/O operations in the Node API are asynchronous (non-blocking design) to fit into the event loop. 
• Performance. Through Google Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine on which the work is built Node.js allows us to run the code faster and easier.
• High scalability.  Applications in Node.js are very scalable because they work asynchronously. Node.js operates in a single thread when one request is submitted, processing begins and is ready to prepare for the next request. When ready, it sends the request back to the client.
• NPM package. 
• Global community. NodeJs has an enormous global community that actively communicating on GitHub, Reddit, and StackOverflow. Community members also share completely free tools, modules, packages, and frameworks with each other.
• Extended hosting options. Node.js deployments occur via PaaS providers such as AWS and Heroku. Thus, NodeJs minimizes the number of servers required to host an application, ultimately reducing page load times by 50%.

Who uses NodeJs

Node.js enables to build the business solutions due to which you have an edge over competitors, e.g.:

• IoT apps;
• SPA;
• Chatbots;
• Data Streaming, etc.

Node.js is quite popular it is used for development by both global companies and startups, below are examples of the most popular of them: 

• Uber
• Slack
• Reddit
• Figma
• AliExpress
• NASA
• LinkedIn
• eBay
• Netflix
• PayPal
• Mozilla
• Yandex

How to create your application on Node.js backend using Flatlogic Platform

1 Step. Choosing the Tech Stack

In this step, you’re setting the name of your application and choosing the stack: Frontend, Backend, and Database.

2 Step. Choosing the Starter Template

Then you’re choosing the design of the web app.

3 Step. Schema Editor

In this part you will need to know which application you want to build, that is, CRM or E-commerce, also in this part you build a database schema i.e. tables and relationships between them.

If you are not familiar with database design and it is difficult for you to understand what tables are, we have prepared several ready-made example schemas of real-world apps that you can build your app upon modification:

• E-commerce app;
• Time tracking app;
• Books store;
• Chat (messaging) app;
• Blog.

Flatlogic Platform offers you the opportunity to create a CRUD application with the Node.js backend literally in a few minutes. As a result, you will get DataBase models, Node.js CRUD admin panel, and API.

The post What is Node.js? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

The importance of React cannot be overstated. React has quickly become a popular choice for frontend web development, and its usage has been steadily increasing since its introduction in 2013. According to a 2020 survey, React was the most popular JavaScript library, with nearly 80% of developers using it.

By reading this article, you will learn what React is and how it can help you create powerful user interfaces. You will also get an overview of the core concepts and components of React, as well as an introduction to the popular React libraries. Finally, you will learn how to set up your development environment and get started using React.

What is React?

React.js was released by a software engineer working for Facebook – Jordan Walke in 2011. React is a JavaScript library focused on creating declarative user interfaces (UIs) using a component-based concept. It’s used for handling the view layer and can be used for web and mobile apps. React’s main goal is to be extensive, fast,  declarative, flexible, and simple. 

React is not a framework, it is specifically a library.  The explanation for this is that React only deals with rendering UIs and reserves many things at the discretion of individual projects. The standard set of tools for creating an application using ReactJS is frequently called the stack.

Why use React?

Let’s take a more detailed look at what sets React library aside against other frameworks and libraries and makes it so powerful and popular for application development.

Virtual Document Object Model (VDOM)

The Document Object Model (DOM) is an API for valid HTML and well-formed XML documents.

A virtual DOM is a representation of a real DOM that is built/manipulated by browsers. Advanced libraries, such as React, generate a tree of elements in memory equivalent to the real DOM, which forms the virtual DOM in a declarative way. The virtual DOM is one of the features that make the framework so fast and reliable.

Image source: https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*HyoU7X-SMyT8xQD1PjrRGw.png

JSX 

React uses a syntax extension to JavaScript called JSX. We use it to create ‘elements’.

const element = <1>My React element using JSX</1>

JSX uses Babel preprocessors to convert HTML-like text in JavaScript files into JavaScript objects to be parsed.

React doesn’t require the use of JSX, but most developers find that it makes for a more user-friendly experience within the JavaScript code.

We use JSX to create React components, so this is why it is an important part of ReactJS.

React Native

React Native is an open-source JavaScript framework for building apps on different platforms, such as iOS, Android, and UPD. It is React-based and gives all its greatness to mobile app development.

React Native uses JavaScript to build the UI of an application but also uses OS-native representations. It allows code to be implemented in OS-native languages (Swift and Objective-C for iOS and Java and Kotlin for Android) for more sophisticated functions.

Main components 

ReactJS is a component-based library where components make our code reusable and split our UI into different pieces. Components are divided into two types: Class components and Function components. All React components follow the separation of concerns design principle, meaning that we should separate our application into different sections to address separate concerns.

Function components

React components work similarly to JavaScript functions. A component takes random inputs, which we call props, and must always return a React element that defines what is intended to be displayed to the user.

The simple method to specify a React component is to define a JavaScript function and return a React element. The React component must always return a React element, or it will throw an error.

function HelloWorld (props){
return [h1]The first React component</h1>;

We’ve defined a ReactJS component called HelloWorld that takes one prop, which stands for properties and returns a ReactJS element, in this case, a simple h1 element. 

Class components

The Class component must have the extends `React.Component` statement. This statement sets up a `React.Component` subclass that allows your component to access `React.Component` functions.

The component must also have a `render()` method, which returns HTML.

Benefits 

So the main question is why you should choose ReactJS as a frontend development stack while there are a lot of others. Here are some reasons:

• Speedless. React allows developers to use individual parts of their application on both the client and server sides, and any changes they make will not affect the application’s logic. This makes the development process extremely fast.
• Components support. The use of HTML tags and JS codes makes it easy to work with a huge dataset containing DOM. React acts as an intermediary that represents the DOM and helps you decide which component requires changes to get accurate results.
• Easy to use and learn. ReactJS is incredibly user-friendly and makes any UI interactive. It also allows you to quickly and efficiently build applications, which is time-saving for clients and developers alike.
• SEO Friendly. A common problem complained by most web developers is that traditional JavaScript frameworks often have problems with SEO.  ReactJS solves this problem by helping developers navigate different search engines easily through the fact that the ReactJS application can run on the server, and the virtual DOM renders and returns it to the browser as a  web page.
• One-way Data Binding. One-way data-binding implies that absolutely anyone can trace all the changes that have been made to a segment of the data.  This is also one of the reasons that makes React so easy.

Who uses React?

Here is the list of popular ReactJS websites:

• Facebook
• Atlassian
• Discord
• Uber Eats
• Netflix
• Airbnb
• Snapchat
• Trello
• Grammarly
• Outlook.com
• Codecademy
• Dropbox

How to build your first application on React

Create an app on React.js from the terminal of your IDE

1. First, you should install the framework package using `npx create-react-app`

`npx create-react-app my-app`, where is the `my-app` name of your application.

2. The next step is navigating to your new application.

`cd my-app`

3. The last step is to start your application.

`npm start` 

In the end, you will have only a frontend application without any database and backend, which takes a lot of work to get a full-fledged application.

How to create your app with Flatlogic Platform

There are two ways to build your application on the Flatlogic Platform: you can create a simple and clear front-end application, generated by the framework CLI, or the CRUD application with frontend+backend+database.

Creating a CRUD application with Flatlogic

Step 1. Choose a Tech Stack

In this step, you’re setting the name of your application and choosing the stack: Frontend, Backend, and Database.

Step 2. Choose the Starter Kit Template

In this step, you’re choosing the design of the web app.

Step 3. Schema Editor

In this part you will need to know which application you want to build, that is, CRM or E-commerce, also in this part you build a database schema i.e. tables and relationships between them.

If you are not familiar with database design and it is difficult for you to understand what tables are, we have prepared several ready-made example schemas of real-world apps that you can build your app upon modification:

• E-commerce app
• Time tracking app
• Book store
• Chat (messaging) app
• Blog

Deploy your app and get a fully functional CMS for your application.

Creating a One-Page application with Flatlogic 

You can create a frontend-only app with the Flatlogic Platform. This assumes you will host the back-end somewhere else or won’t need it at all. To generate a one-page application you don’t need to enter anything in the terminal of your IDE, you just need to go to the page of creating an application on the Flatlogic website and make only 2 steps:

Step 1. Choose Tech Stack

In this step, you set the name of your application and choose the stack: React as Frontend, No-Backend as Backend.

Step 2. Choose Starter Template

In this step, you choose the design of the web app. Since this is a standard one-page application created using the CLI framework, it will have the design of a standard one-page ReactJS CLI application.

Now, finally, you can deploy your app and get a one-page React application, which you can further modify if you’d like.

The post What is React? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

PHP (an acronym for Hypertext Pre-processor or the previous one Personal Home Pages) is a server-side open-source scripting language. It is great for dynamic content management, session tracking, and databases, and has fantastic community support.

PHP is a weak dynamic typing language, meaning it auto-determines a lot of implicit conversions, even though there may be a lack of precision or equivocal conversions. In 2020 PHP 8 came out. It has a JIT (just-in-time) Compilation, which sped up the work of the Preprocessor multiple times.

PHP is a popular programming language and is the foundation of such CMSs as WordPress (powers 43% of all the websites on the Internet), DRUPAL, Joomla, and the most popular E-Commerce Magento 2. Also, there are very popular PHP-based MVC Frameworks Symfony such as Yii2 (very popular in Russia) and Laravel (takes the 1st place in GitHub RANKING).

How PHP works

Let’s elaborate on how the Hypertext Preprocessor works. The browser sends an HTTP request to a web server. Then the index.php file is generated, which is handled by the preprocessor. Finally, the web server receives the output and sends it back over the Internet to a user’s web browser.

Why use PHP

PHP is incredibly easy for beginners and provides multiple advanced features for professional programmers. With it, you can learn and start writing basic scripts in a short period. Here is the list of the best features:

Versatility

PHP is a server-side programming language. Therefore, you need to set up a server to work with it. This language is also platform-independent. You don’t need a specific operating system to use it because it works on any platform, whether it’s macOS, Windows, Linux. For that reason, this is why it may be deployed on various systems and platforms easily and inexpensively.  

Secure and swift

PHP used to be scolded for its ability to attack the site with SQL injection, but with the release of MVC frameworks, this is now impossible. The major advantage is that due to the wide distribution and support of the community, there are now multiple tools, frameworks, and security and cyberattack protection solutions available. The second equally major feature is speed, try to use versions 8 and up, as these versions introduced the JIT Compilation, which speeds up PHP.

Well-linked with databases

PHP provides an easy way to establish a reliable connection to almost any database. So it can instantly connect to MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or any other database.

Testing

Among programming languages, PHP has a reputation for being stable and reliable. Its code has been tested under a wide variety of real-world and experimental conditions. If there’s a possible error or shortcoming, chances are someone in the community has found a way to deal with it. There are numerous frameworks and toolkits which are helpful for secure, efficiency and effectiveness of web development.

Community

PHP has a very responsive online community. The official documentation contains feature guides, chats and forums, so you can quickly solve your problem if you get stuck.

Low-cost open-source software

PHP is a no-cost language that can significantly help you save on your development expenses. A lot of the development tools normally used with this language are open-source and available for free, so they keep the cost of the project down even more. Numerous frameworks offer Hypertext functionalities and make the development process easier and much better, for example, the most popular and widely used is Laravel.

Conclusion

Rasmus Lerdorf is a Danish-Canadian programmer who released the first version of PHP in 1994. It continues to be a widely used and actual language in web development. It has been available for quite a long time. Major companies like Slack, Meta (Facebook), HPVM, and Wikipedia use the language extensively. Web Hosting Platforms like BlueHost, Cloudways(Laminas Hosting), Site ground run their hosting servers using Hypertext Preprocessor.

On the Flatlogic Platform, you can also use PHP when choosing the Laravel backend framework for creating your application. Afterward, you will get in a few minutes the Laravel CRUD admin panel with DataBase models and API.

The post What is PHP? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

The domain name is the name of the website that you put in the URL bar. It maps to a numeric IP address used for accessing a website from client software. The domain name should consist of letters, numbers, hyphens, and be available, while the domain extension is generally a given number of letters. When you enter a domain name in your web browser, it first sends a request to a global network of servers that form the Domain Name System (DNS). Then those servers search for domain-related name servers in their records and route the request to their site.

This is where the hosting company comes into play by allowing name servers to access the data stored on your site. This data is then sent back to the web browser through which you search to translate it into the interface you see on your desktop.

Hosting

Web hosting services allow you to publish the website on the internet. Hosting provides storage for your site’s files and is also responsible for its security.

When a user enters your website’s domain name into the search bar, an answer is provided by your hosting provider. Factors to consider when choosing a hosting provider:

• Usability. Make sure that the dashboard for managing your hosting account provided by your hosting provider is user-friendly and has a wide range of features.
• Speed. Choose a web hosting company that guarantees uninterrupted operations and offers high upload speeds.
• Hosting plan. Carefully study additional modules and payments included in the hosting plan. 
• Support. Choose a hosting company with a reliable support service, which provides you with rapid and quality help in case of technical problems.

There are a lot of types of web hostings here are some of them: Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Server Hosting, WordPress Hosting, Managed Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Reseller Hosting, etc. 

Let’s look more closely at more used:

1. Shared Server.
   
   Simple and cost-effective type of web hosting that is a great choice for small or beginning websites. With shared hosting, websites share resources with other websites on the same server. It works fine because the overwhelming majority of websites don’t need an entire server.
   
2. Virtual Private Server (VPS).
   
   By using a VPS, your website will be sharing the same server with other websites anyway, because, on this hosting system, the server is divided into virtual parts. Users have access only to their own virtual space because they get a dedicated space that other users cannot use, which provides more security with less investment.
   
3. Dedicated Server.
   
   This type of hosting is the most expensive and provides high security. You have full control over the web server and your website is the only one on it.
   
4. Cloud Server. Cloud hosting provides the best productivity at a reasonable price. This type of hosting involves multiple remote servers, where each server has its duties. Consequently, if one of the servers fails, the other servers take over those duties and perform them.
   
5. Managed Server. Hosting that provides free professional site migration, powerful tools like email, staging and backups, and 24/7 support. However, you’d still need additional tools like a DMARC checker for extra security of your emails.

Conclusion

Domain names and web hosting are very important in the development of your application. Website content such as HTML, CSS, and images has to be housed on a server to be viewable online. Applications created with Flatlogic Platform are hosted right after creation on our secure Flatlogic infrastructure. In premium subscriptions, you can connect your custom domain to your application directly using our platform.

The post What is Hosting and Domain Name? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

Git is a version control system for keeping track of changes to files.
Git’s robust version control capabilities, highlighted by its efficient branching model, simplify merging contributions from multiple developers, enhancing collaboration and productivity in business software development. Its compatibility with platforms like GitHub further supports secure backup and easy access to revision histories.  The feature that sets it apart from nearly every other SCM out there is its branching model. What makes Git extremely simple is the ability to merge changes from several people into a single source.  You can use GitHub or other online hosts where you can also store backups of your files and their revision history. 

Repositories and Commits

Repositories (or repos) are collections of code. To keep track of the development process, Repositories include commits to the project or a collection of commit references.

Commit is a snapshot of your repository at a particular point in time. Commits capture a specific change or series of changes, that you have made to a file in the repository. Successive commits constitute the history of Git.

Branches and Merging

Generally, branches are unique code changes set with a unique name. Any repository contains more or less than one branch. The main branch where all changes merge eventually is the master branch.

Merge provides a Git method for combining fork histories. Merge integrates several commit sequences into history. Most commonly, Merge serves to combine two forked histories.

Git Pull Requests

Pull request is a method for discussing changes before they are merged into your codebase. A pull request is not just a notification, it is a special discussion forum for the suggested feature. If there are any problems with the changes, team members can provide feedback on the pull request and even refine the feature by pushing subsequent commits. All of this activity is tracked directly in the pull request.

Git commands

Developers use specific commands to copy, create, modify, and merge code to use Git. You can execute these commands directly from the command line or through an application. Here are some of those commands:

You can find more Git commands here.

Why use Git?

1. Synchronous development. Everyone has their local instance of the code, and everyone can work on their branches at the same time. Git works offline because almost all operations run locally.

2. Increase team speed and productivity. Git makes keeping track of changes to your code easy for your team. So you can focus on writing code instead of wasting time tracking and merging different versions into your team. It also calculates and stores your main repository locally, making it faster for most operations.

3. Open Source. Open source allows developers from all over the world to contribute to the software and make it more and more powerful through features and extra plugins. This has led to the Linux kernel consisting of 15 million lines of code.

4. Security: SHA-1 cryptography keeps you safe. This algorithm securely manages your versions, files and directories to avoid any damage to your work.

5. Git is an Industry Standard. It is highly popular, and major IDEs support it.

Suggested articles

• What is REST API
• Docker and Why Use It?
• What is API and How It Works

The post What is Git and Why Use It? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.