The essential path guide

Navigate your way through creating your first application within the Betty Blocks platform.

The Betty Blocks essential path can be found can be found here, and accessed with any Betty Blocks account! you can follow the video path and create your first application.

Here's the introduction to the path:

Some might use this guide as an addition to the video course following step-by-step configurations or returning to some specific points within the path; others can just look for some essential practices for creating an application here and go through sections in whatever order they prefer.

Let’s break down the material into chapters so that you can easily find your way.

Intro

The first thing we do in the essential path is create our application and make sure the initial environment is set up for grand adventures. This article opens up the list of documents to get familiar with the modules, tools and features Betty Blocks has to offer.

Creating an application	Discover the user dashboard segments and create an application.
Basic features of Betty Blocks	A starting point to learn about core functionality modules.
What is the builder bar?	Accessing various modules and tools in the platform.
Introduction to application templates	Find out what application templates are and how to start using them.
Login flow template	This template enables you to create an application with login, registration, and password reset options.
Cheat sheet	A glossary of terms to comprehend some important notions that you can come across while building your application.

Design

In this part of the path, you create and design your pages: home, overview, create, and detail. Adding components and navigation, as well as page stylization, picking up fonts, etc. are explained here.

Working with the page builder	This article explains how to use the page’s quick menu.
Page builder reference	Navigating through the page builder.
Creating a new page	Creating a new page from scratch or using a page template is explained.
Working with components using the pages menu	Use the extensive set of blocks to build the user interface.
Page builder component section	This article describes the default component set the platform has to offer and gives an overview of each section of the components.
Setting up and building a page layout	Learn about the positioning of elements on your page and their layout.
Navigating between components	A brief explanation of the page layer structure and hierarchy.
Creating and using partials	Find out how to turn components into partials and reuse them on different pages.
Header and footer template	Start building a new full-height page with the pre-created header, body, and footer.
Adding a logo to a page	Adjust the styling of your page by adding a logo and designing the look of the navigation bar.
Using the theme builder	Customize your application’s look: color scheme, fonts, icon sizing, etc.

Data modeling

An application's data is defined and stored in its data model. After creating the design of our application, we now know what kind of data is to be collected. A data model consists of multiple models, properties, and their connections (relations) that you are going to work with.

What is a data model	Models, their properties, and relations are explained within this article.
Navigating the data model module	An overview of different buttons and icons you are going to use while building your data model.
Getting started with data model	Learn how to build and set up your first data model.
Adding properties to a model	Find out how to add properties to a model, change their settings and manage them.
Connecting your models	Use the schema view and build the relations between your models
What are model permissions?	This article explains how to provide access to the information in your application and add new roles

Need more information on data modeling? Visit Betty Block's data model documentation to find some references and best practices.

Page builder functionalities

Now that you have set up a design and data model for your application, it is time to add some functionalities that will connect your design and data to make the front end of your application smooth. This chapter contains articles on working with data tables, forms, and various components within the page builder. Enabling data filtering and interactions is also explained here.

Adding data to your application	An example of how you can display data using a data component in the page builder.
Data filtering	Learn how filters work and how to filter your data on the page
Creating component interactions	This article explains how to set component interactions to enable the content to change dynamically

In order to learn more about the page builder and components functionalities, go to the page builder reference section in the documents.

Actions

In the essential path, we make the functional pages more dynamic by adding logic in the form of actions. Build your own action flow by adding action steps, each handling its own functionality. These steps will serve the logical construction and will be executed on conditions that you set yourself. In this course, we are creating our own CRUD, condition, and loop steps to make sure the handling of our data becomes more secure.

What are actions?	An introduction article to discover the basic elements and features of the actions segment.
Building an action	Create an action flow in your application.
Action step functionality	Learn about the kinds of action steps and how to apply them.
Variables	The article gives the idea of what variables are and in which scope they can be used.

Finalizing

To conclude the essential path, we will finalize the environment we built our application in and make sure it's usable for people we invite to the application's front end. Next to that, we go over some extra tips that will help you adjust the settings of your application and give you some ideas on how sandboxes work. Working in a sandbox allows you to build in a safer way, without losing progress.

Working with application settings	Regulate the settings of your application: options, invitations, hostnames, mail, etc.
Sandboxes explained	A copy of your application in which you can make changes without making these changes directly in your live application.
Creating a sandbox	Learn how to create and manage sandboxes.