Release 1.4.0: welcoming the Marketplace and a new Page Editor experience
I’m thrilled to announce the release of PixieBrix 1.4.0! This release is a major milestone in our pursuit of enabling everyone to create the perfect UX for the web sites they depend on most.
The release includes a lot of hard work and new features by the PixieBrix team. (You can find a complete list of changes in our release notes and GitHub.)
However, there’s three features I’d like to highlight:
Instant feedback
We’ve re-imagined our Page Editor experience for modifying the functionality of web sites.
The re-design was informed by two core principles: encourage experimentation, and minimize mental bookkeeping.
The feature that most exemplifies these two principles is the Page Editor’s Preview feature. The Preview displays the output of a brick in real-time as you modify it’s configuration. It’s perfect for manipulating data you receive from an API or encoding business rules
But, we’re not stopping here. In the coming weeks, we’ll be further improving brick configuration experience with template assistance and autocomplete.
Form Builder
A core usage pattern PixieBrix enables is “Rapid Actions” — making important actions frictionless.
Here, PixieBrix differs from other technologies such as iPaaS (e.g., Zapier), ETL (e.g., Informatica), and RPA (e.g., UiPath). Those platforms are great for low-judgment/high-volume processes — processing in batch or in response to events. PixieBrix, on the other hand, excels in high-judgement/medium-volume situations.
With the Form Builder, now anyone can build forms to capture critical information that’s not available on a page or in a system. For example, voice of customer information during support calls, or insights about sales prospects.
The Form Builder is also the first stop in our journey to make PixieBrix the best way to both capture and operationalize organizational knowledge. From decision trees to business intelligence (BI), PixieBrix enables rich content that can automatically adapt based on context.
Marketplace
In parallel with extension Release 1.4.0, we’ve launched the PixieBrix Marketplace. The Marketplace is the place to discover and learn about the wide world of built-in and custom bricks. You can also activate ready-made blueprint to immediately enhance your browsing experience
Today, the Marketplace is curated by the PixieBrix team. However, in the coming weeks we’ll be opening up the Marketplace to the broader PixieBrix community. I’m constantly amazed by the creativity and ingenuity of our community!
If you’d like to follow us on this journey, please follow our posts on Medium or star our project on GitHub. If you’d like to join us on this journey, see our Careers page — we can’t wait to hear from you!
