Web Appbuilder heading to extinction

LefterisKoumis · ‎07-11-2019

ESRI UC introduced a new product called Experience Builder ( ArcGIS Experience Builder | A new way of building web apps) which eventually will replace Web App builder. The new product will be based on JS API 4.x, React JS and Typescript. So, no more DOJO and Web Appbuilder will never be upgraded to JS API 4.x

The presenter said there are no plans to replace Web Appbuilder YET. We have seen it before when ESRI announced Web Appbuilder with no plans to discontinue support for FLEX. A year later they did.

Anonymous User · ‎10-23-2019

Well, in a way, I miss Flash. I vastly prefer designing the front end like a designer, not obscure code and the modern way of doing HTML with 10 different frameworks. On the other hand, as my dad always taught me in the 90s, if you let a program do your HTML and CSS, it will be an unmaintainable rat's nest. I have seen what FrontPage, Adobe apps, etc generate. I would love a GUI that creates clean MD Bootstrap and jQuery under the hood, but via drag n drop. Meanwhile... as time progressed, Flash killed itself. I can't blame Apple for killing Flash, but Adobe for the software quality. Particularly on the Mac, Flash was buggy, slow, and across platforms, a security issue. Nevertheless, it was unparalleled for rapid app development and ease of use. I do miss that aspect.

With Dojo, Esri picked the library with the best internationalization at the time, if I recall right from an explanation long ago. However, Dojo is aging, and is a bit slow to load on clients like phones. I can see why they have been looking to become more library abstracted. React is becoming more popular with big vendor support. So we'll see what happens. But it is a big change and hopefully if we pick something (ie React) it will stay constant for at least 5 or 6 years. But to me... Experience Builder is not a replacement for WAB. It is a great compliment. It seems to fulfill the same customer audience that Story Maps do. Great for turnkey sites with rapid development and minimal coding.

LefterisKoumis · ‎10-23-2019

I agreed with everything you said except ":Experience Builder is not a replacement for WAB". I think that EB is destined to be the replacement for WAB. By not upgrading WAB 2D to JS API 4.x basically WAB will die slowly because it will become irrelevant. New tools/widgets will take advantage of the JS 4.x power and they can be used only in EB.

Jianxia · ‎11-13-2019

Lefteris,

Thanks for your feedback. One of the reasons that React is chosen over other frameworks is Mobile-first design.

Anonymous User · ‎10-22-2019

Michael Volz‌ MS Edge is now going to be based on Chrome (Chromium) under the hood, so that may help.

Jianxia · ‎11-13-2019

Kevin,

Sorry for the delay and thank you so much for your feedback. This will help us to position the product. Web AppBuilder and Experience builders are two separate products and both builders for online and enterprise editions will be running in parallel. We have been actively adding enhancements and fixing bugs in Web AppBuilder. See the October blog post.

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As far as Developer Edition is concerned, with extensibility built on JSAPI 3x, it will follow the same product lifecycle as JSAPI3.x. Regarding the user interface, the coming beta 2 will address it with a few WAB like templates. I hope you'd like it. Please keep your input coming our way.

Anonymous User · ‎11-14-2019

Hi Jianxia Song‌ thank you that is perfect, that is enough time to transition. I understand addition of new frameworks and MVC, that is great. I just was wondering how long we had. 2022 that is plenty, thank you!! I will look forward to the beta and I will take a look and touch base with you my thoughts and experience with it. Thank you again Jianxia for giving us a long term roadmap to help us plan.