Recently, I had a few different projects on my plate. One was a WordPress site, one was a single-page gallery site, and one was a tiny, little single-page marketing app.
When I start a new project, I usually open up Sketch or Figma and play around for a few hours. Then just hop into the code and start to go after it. But these projects were different, and I needed to get something live on a URL quickly because I knew that the client had very specific needs.
In my journey to find some different tools. I found some really interesting products that offer a glimpse of where we could be heading.
Tailwind Builder
Tailwind Builder is a slick little drag-and-drop tool that allows you to crank out a quick static site using Tailwind CSS. If you haven’t used Tailwind before, it is an interesting framework because your class names are super descriptive, like this: text-sm text-indigo-600 font-bold
This system takes some getting used to and can be an awkward taste.
Bootstrap Shuffle
Bootstrap builder for busy developers
Bootstrap Shuffle is the same idea and made by the same person as the Tailwind builder, but it might be more familiar to some people. I was able to drag and drop a site together quickly. Then I was able to get a full single-page bootstrap version live in under 30 minutes with Netlify.
Sketch2Code
Sketch2Code at Microsoft AI Lab
This tool from Microsoft falls under the experimental flag, but if you play with it for ten minutes, you will marvel at its power to convert your drawings of input boxes into functional code.
Next, we will look at tools like https://bubble.io/ and https://webflow.com/
