DEV Community

Cover image for Introducing Codux

Introducing Codux

Nadav Abrahami on December 05, 2022

TL;DR - Introducing Codux, a new visual IDE for easing and accelerating the development of React projects. Learn more about it here, or join the co...
Collapse
 
codenameone profile image
Shai Almog

Congratulations!

It's amazing how far back we regressed from the ease of visual basic. There's so much room to improve front end development. Good luck.

Collapse
 
seanmclem profile image
Seanmclem

Really puts the competition to shame. There must be a skill gap

Collapse
 
jesstelford profile image
Jess Telford • Edited

Taking this one for a spin today! 😍

It's free right now, but are there any plans to open source it? Or will it eventually be a closed source paid product?

I have a use case where I'd like to embed the editor in a webpage: the resulting code would be written to the URL instead of the disk, similar to SEEK's Playroom - do you imagine this being a possibility in the future?

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton

Would LOVE to hear your thoughts once you give it a go :)

It is free right now and will always be free for open source projects. At this stage we're not thinking monitization, but more interested in usecases like yours and what you plan on doing with Codux.

We are working on a fully online version of Codux, and pluggability/extendability system. It seems to me like the combination of the two would answer your usecaes and much more!

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton

Regrading the open sourcing of Codux itself - We already have some of the tooling used to build Codux open sourced and will add to that in the future. We are not planning to open source the entire platform itself for now.

Collapse
 
alastairlangridge profile image
Alastair Langridge

Would be dope if you could allow this to use Tailwind to do the styling, potentially a minefield but for those of us that use it would be pretty amazing

Collapse
 
nadavab profile image
Nadav Abrahami

We're going to add support for tailwind CSS soon.
it's at the top of our list for the next CSS solution to support.

Collapse
 
seanmclem profile image
Seanmclem

Awesome. I don’t suppose you have time for styled components?

Thread Thread
 
nadavab profile image
Nadav Abrahami

CSS in JS is going to be more complex to support, it's supported for rendering but adding it to the style panel is going to take us more time,
it's on our list.

IMO our very own stylable.io is better for managing design systems. you should check it out.

Thread Thread
 
seanmclem profile image
Seanmclem

I thought that might be the case. So I was looking through the docs and was having trouble finding just examples of what the different styling options looked like, in use. It was a lot of set up and semantics. Did I miss the quick code samples?

Thread Thread
 
nadavab profile image
Nadav Abrahami

We currently support CSS and SASS. Both with or without css-modules, and our very own Stylable.

Would love to hear what you would have liked to see in the docs.

Let me know if you would agree to jump on a chat with us.
Thanks

Collapse
 
codingjlu profile image
codingjlu

Fascinating idea. I'll be sure to try it out!

Collapse
 
wandering-geek profile image
Krishna

Great article!

When I tried to access the website codux.com/, my security software(Bitdefender) blocked it citing "dangerous software"

Looking at VirusTotal two vendors classify your URL as malicious.

A bad domain reputation may cost you some users. Would recommend getting in touch with the vendors to have this fixed.

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton

We managed to clear up the issue (I hope 🫣). Thanks again!

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton

We really appreciate the heads up and taking care of this right now 🙏

Collapse
 
randellbrianknight profile image
Randell Brian Knight

Codux is absolutely amazing! 🎉 Way to go folks, I wish you much success. 😎

Collapse
 
mrblightning profile image
MrBLightning

Sounds really cool. If I was still creating projects in React I would give a try for sure :)

Collapse
 
nadavab profile image
Nadav Abrahami

what are you creating projects in these days?

Collapse
 
mrblightning profile image
MrBLightning

I'm actually a DevRel these days so I have fewer chances to touch code directly and more chances to explain it to others :)

Collapse
 
bhumit070 profile image
Bhoomit Ganatra

It says download node js even though I have already NodeJs installed in my device
I thought it was due to NVM so I put static path in my variable to NodeJS

but it still does not work can you please help me so I can try out this tool

I have m1 pro mac running mac os 13

and I gave path to NodeJS version 18

Collapse
 
thealmightycrumb profile image
Sagiv Dayan

Hi, I am Sagiv, a team member at Codux.
When using NVM I'd suggest running the following:
nvm alias default 18 in your terminal
Then restart Codux.

The nvm alias default command sets the specified version of Node.js as the default version to be used when a new terminal session is opened.

Please let me know if it helped you.
Also, I recommend opening a ticket so we can assist you further: Contact Us.
To help us better understand your issue, you can include screenshots, error logs, and other relevant details in your ticket.

Collapse
 
bhumit070 profile image
Bhoomit Ganatra • Edited

I tried this but it did not work.

Thread Thread
 
thealmightycrumb profile image
Sagiv Dayan

It looks like the shell you are using may not be set as the default shell that Codux uses. It could explain why Codux is unable to find Node.
We are currently working on a solution to this issue, we invite you to open a ticket in which you can provide more information and we will be happy to reach out to you with any updates.

Collapse
 
carmela001 profile image
Carmen

Thank you very much, I'll try it :)

Collapse
 
redbar0n profile image
Magne

It shows how your components look in their various states.

the visual rendering stage. It shows how your components look in their various states.

How would Codux integrate with XState? It would be awesome to be able to run through the states, see changes in the UI, and make edits and create new states on the fly.

@davidkpiano

Collapse
 
nadavab profile image
Nadav Abrahami • Edited

Shouldn't be a problem, Boards are essentially react components for wrapping your components, giving them properties and context.

Setting up a component with Xstate, is as easy as mocking it for a test, or showing it in a demo.

Collapse
 
redbar0n profile image
Magne

Cool! I'd be very intrigued to try Codux if there were a convincing example that integrates seamlessly with XState..!

Collapse
 
tomrav profile image
Tom Raviv

Really excited to see this finally go out to the real world, to meet real projects, belonging to real users.

Curious (and a bit nervous) what people will think, looking forward to some interesting discussions. :)

Collapse
 
theluk profile image
Lukas Klinzing

So unfortunately I cannot sign up!

  1. The signup using oAuth is opening in a window where I cannot verify if I am really on a google/facebook domain. I cannot enter my password for this reason
  2. Sign up using email and password not working, because every time I get a captcha request that is endless. I cannot see a reason other than the fact that the login is not in a real browser which makes google think I am a spammer as I am trying to login with an automated electron app or something.

Just in case you wonder if people are not signing up :-)
I would consider a magic link authentication, or a normal oAuth where you get a login window in a real users browser, then get the oauth callback on a website of yours and then redirecting to a link which which can trigger to open the native application...

Good luck

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton

hey @theluk ! Sorry for getting back to you so late...
This was a bug over at google's captcha mechanism. We managed to since fix this issue so you can give Codux a try now.

Apologies for that. Hope you're still willing to give Codux a shot :)

Collapse
 
lirantal profile image
Liran Tal

Really taking the whole lowcode to the next level. Nice work and congrats!

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton

Hey @lirantal !
We like to say it isn't low code, it's YOUR code :)

Collapse
 
obetomuniz profile image
Beto Muniz • Edited

Would this be promoted as an web-first tool? I mean, UI Components run into Browsers, and should be executed in such a environment during development, like the demo in the website. Is it a thing that you will focus?

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton

Absolutley. We're working on a compleley online version on Codux as we speak 😁

BTW, you can still render Codux Boards in a browser - just open the options menu in the editor and choose "Open in new window". Now you can see your code in the browser, debug with browser dev-tools and test different browsers

Image description

Collapse
 
hamatoyogi profile image
Yoav Ganbar

This sounds super cool!
Can't wait to give it a try.

For other frameworks, have you looked at Mitosis?

Happy to explore if it's a good fit for you.

CC @samijaber

Collapse
 
nadavab profile image
Nadav Abrahami

I can see a lot of advantages to supporting it. We'll add it to the list.

Collapse
 
bhumit070 profile image
Bhoomit Ganatra

It says download node js even though I have already NodeJs installed in my device
I thought it was due to NVM so I put static path in my variable to NodeJS
but it still does not work can you please help me so I can try out this tool
I have m1 pro mac running mac os 13
and I gave path to NodeJS version 18

Collapse
 
aris profile image
Aris Ripandi

Amazing tool! Love it. It's like Figma but for React. 🤯

Collapse
 
nadavab profile image
Nadav Abrahami

Thanks, join our discord, give us feedback 😊. We want all the feedbacks

Collapse
 
amirhbeigi profile image
Amirhossein Beigi

Hey everyone, I wrote a blog post about Codux that could be helpful to this community. Check it out:
medium.com/@amirhbeigi/unleash-you...

Let me know what you think!

Collapse
 
uglydiety profile image
Uglydiety

Sounds similar to storyboard? storybook.js.org/

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton

Both in Codux and Storybook you isolate your components and render them, but this is where the similarities end :) . Now within Codux you can drill into every internal part of your component and visually edit it! you can change prop values, edit styles, and add/remove JSX elements all within the app. Every change you make results in actual source code change that you can later commit and push through git just as if you've done them in your IDE.

Collapse
 
uglydiety profile image
Uglydiety

I see! That is cool

Collapse
 
sharonpriel profile image
sharonpriel

Cool stuff :)

Collapse
 
matijasos profile image
Matija Sosic

Wow this is really cool! If you want a solution with a similar philosophy, but for the full-stack (low code, no visual ide yet), check out: wasp-lang.dev/

Btw, is this open-source? This would a perfect match for the frontend part in the future for wasp

Collapse
 
ccsunnydev profile image
ccsunny

Awesome tool, just wonder how did you do this

Collapse
 
nadavab profile image
Nadav Abrahami

Building on top of a lot of dev tooling that we all use and love. ( Typescript, prettify, sass etc.) And a lot of hard work to be honest.
I'll be happy to give a deeper dive into how everything works. Which part interests you?

Collapse
 
giladefrati profile image
Gilad Efrati

Wow! does it work with styled-components?

Collapse
 
arnonkehat profile image
Arnon Kehat

Hey, styled-components (as well as other CSS-in-JS solutions) is currently not fully supported. Codux will render the components properly, but will not be able to edit their styles. This is definitely in our plans as we expand our stack coverage.

Collapse
 
devsonwix profile image
Devs on Wix

Very exciting, Codux!

Collapse
 
renzo_gaspary profile image
Renzo Gaspary

I would love to try this out but I can't install this in Fedora. Any chance there can be a .rpm version compiled?

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton • Edited

Hey @renzo_gaspary :)
We hear the Linux crowd and will try to package the upcoming releases for more versions. Please join our Discord to know about new releases.
discord.gg/6nhM6cpS

Collapse
 
oanouman profile image
Martial Anouman

it remind me DreamWeaver... Bad memories 😂

Collapse
 
mrdulin profile image
official_dulin

Visual component editor?No code.

Collapse
 
nadavab profile image
Nadav Abrahami

I don't quite understand the question.
Codux is a code-first product.
The code always comes first, The visual controls just allow better code editing experience in some cases

Collapse
 
jonathanlal profile image
jonathanlal

Download link no longer available?

Collapse
 
jomarton profile image
Jonathan Marton

hey @jonathanlal Download link is working for me. Can you try again?

Collapse
 
rightson1 profile image
rightson

could you add next js support

Collapse
 
rightson1 profile image
rightson

Could you make it support next js

Collapse
 
loicb_69 profile image
Loic BERTHOLLET

Hi,

Very nice tool!
Getting the styles from the designer is something that is really helpful.

Any chance to use it for a library project of type "Lit Element"?

Collapse
 
elierhg profile image
Elier Herrera • Edited

It is finally here, great work guys!!
How long do you think, before it has support for Svelte?

Collapse
 
csclarence profile image
Clarence Delmacio Manuel

This is great! Are there any plans to support for other frameworks such as Solid, Vue, Svelte, etc?