Dvl'epr Engineering Blog — Announcement

Dvl'epr markup files have been hand-written using text editors. You build the HTML structure, write the SQL behind it, and the engine turns the two into a working application. That has served for twenty years, and nothing about it is changing.

What is changing is that you no longer have to type it.

Dvl'epr Studio is a low-code development platform for building web applications on Dvl'epr. You build each page visually, attach the SQL behind it, and the Studio compiles and exports every declarative markup file the engine needs. It is open now to everyone building on Dvl'epr.

What it does

Five things — the five that take the time when you build an application by hand.

The whole application, not just its pages. Apps, sites, modules, navigation and the routing between them: the Studio builds every declarative markup file Dvl'epr needs to assemble a working application.

A true WYSIWYG designer. Application pages — Views — are created with ease.

SQL where it belongs. The SQL for a page sits with the HTML structure it feeds. There is no API layer to build and nothing on the client to keep in step with it.

Preview on real data. The preview displays a page using your actual test data and your own styling. It is not a mock-up — it is the page as it will be served.

Forms, front to back. The fields, their validation and the insert or update that saves them are built together, so a form and the logic that stores its data never drift apart.

What it produces

This is the part worth reading twice, because it is what separates the Studio from most tools of its kind.

For most low-code tools, the builder is the platform. Your application lives inside it, as configuration in someone else's system. Leave the tool and you leave with nothing you can use.

The Studio isn't the platform. It writes the same files a developer writes by hand — so stop using it tomorrow and nothing changes.

Dvl'epr Studio compiles to ordinary declarative markup and SQL, in plain text. Open a file in VS Code or any editor and change it. Hand-written pages and Studio-built pages sit side by side in the same application, with nothing to tell them apart. Adopting the Studio is a decision you can reverse, which is not something most builders can offer.

It is itself a Dvl'epr application

The Studio is built on the platform it builds for. A visual designer, a properties panel, live database previews and a form builder — all of it HTML structure and SQL, served by the same engine that will serve whatever you build with it.

This is the best advertisement Dvl'epr has.

What's coming

Three things are next.

AI assistance. We already use AI to build Dvl'epr applications — the same assistance is coming to the Studio, so you build yours faster.

A SQL generator. Build your queries in the Studio instead of writing them by hand.

A fuller designer. Brought in line with visual build tools like Wix.

Early access

Early access is open to everyone building on Dvl'epr, and to a small number of developers new to the platform.