Add custom component in UI Builder

I have recently tried to add a “combobox” like feature in a backendless app for a small set of end users. I understood that the feature is not available.

I find that each of the UI components are somewhat limited in functionality and forcing end users to use multiple components to achieve the same experience that could be had in a single one is confusing to them. Another example might be the data views, which I had to manually insert javascript code into them to have an “on-tap” method available.

The UI builder has great potential but I don’t see it going much further if we cannot customize components further. Would it be possible to either 1) customize existing components’s code or 2) insert completely new components coded by hand?

Longer term, this could also provide users with a shared library of polished components which would be really appreciated. Taking the first example, a “combobox” built for a specific datatable with where-clause/filter on a text field for autocomplete purposes would be magic… but here I am scratching my head on how to have this otherwise simple component in my app. I may have to resort to inserting it manually via JS on the “on page load”.

Thank you for your consideration, and hopefully you can understand I am sharing this because I want Backendless to succeed,

This may be a more experimental request but a custom component coder could be complemented with an AI powered UI builder, since that’s all the rage nowadays.

Hi Maxine,

Thank you for your questions.

There is a built-in combobox component, it is called Select:

There are three additional combobox variations in the marketpace:

  • Multiple Select
  • Tree Select
  • Autocomplete

Yes, all custom components provided through the marketplace are open source and you are welcome to modify them as you see fit:

https://github.com/Backendless/ui-builder-library

Yes, you can create your own custom components. There is a guide available at:

https://backendless.com/custom-ui-components-in-backendless-ui-builder/

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mark

Really appreciate the response, thank you @mark-piller . Will take a look at all of these.