[6:10pm: At The Great Library of Alexandria.]

Bubble.io has an enormous collection of templates to choose from. Many provide frameworks for app categories like CRM, dashboard, project management, etc. Some just provide building blocks, like login forms and landing pages.

Should I go with a template or start from scratch?

One consideration is that the app should be responsive, or work across all devices. Starting with a template designed for that could save me from learning that skill now, but what if I have to customize it later? Hmm. In the spirit of JIT learning, I'll avoid starting from scratch just for the sake of practicing responsive design skills. If I need those skills later, I'll learn them then.

Nice Responsive Templates

• ‍Canvas Base Template - They say this is for users with intermediate Bubble skills. Not me. But since I'm learning just-in-time, maybe I can become intermediate just-in-time.
• ‍openBase Starter Framework - Includes "400+ openBuild components that fit perfectly to build faster than ever."
• Top Shelf Elements - Not as fancy as the other ones, but looks solid.

Going with one of the "building blocks" templates ensures my app would look consistent within and across all pages. I'm not a proficient designer, so being able to choose from parts that match is a big plus.

Components

Login page. This is something we can add later on.

• ‍Modern Login - Decent looking
• Clean Login & Sign Up - Looks a touch better than the aforementioned
• Modern Login & Profile - gives the option to sign in with Facebook and Google. However, a comment said it's not fully responsive.

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At some point, I need to stop shopping around and pick a damn template. How can I tell when I've reached the optimal stopping point? In Algorithms to Live By, they suggest I should look at 37% of the templates, then choose the next one that's better than any of the ones I've seen before [1].

template = new array[100]; // list of templates

theBest = 0; // the best template so far

// insert code to add templates into the template array *waves hand*

for (i = 0; i < 37; i++) {

   if (template[i] > template[theBest])

        template[theBest] = template[i];

}

for (i = 37; i < 100; i++) {

   if (template[i] > template[theBest])

       return template[i];

}

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That's probably not the most efficient implementation, but it captures the idea.

This all feels like more work than necessary, though. Browsing to find the few templates above took me about 15 minutes, and I'm only on page 2 of 91. Future ones might be faster because I know what to look for. But how to factor in the fact that I can start without a template?

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[1] I was wondering where the 37% came from and Troy Harmon explains it in a comment:

"The big secret you don’t mention is where the number 37% comes from.

37% = 0.37 which is approximately 1/2.71828

And what is 2.718281828 and then some? This is the value for Euclid’s Number. Euclid’s Number (written as lower case e) is fairly critical for determining odds. If you have a one in a hundred chance of something happening, and you try a hundred times, you have about a 63% chance of it happening, which is 100% minus the original number that was brought up.

You don’t have to stop at 37%, and the article doesn’t say to. It just says to take the first one that is better than the rest after you hit 37%."

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