The original name was project Avocado, but I didn't find any good domain names and social media handles. I agree the naming could have been better.
@adrianthedev
From 12/28/2016, 2:42:33 PM till now, @adrianthedev has achieved 82 Karma Points with the contribution count of 57.
Recent @adrianthedev Activity
Thanks Dan! I appreciate the support and the kind words
Hey HN,
I'm Adrian, an indie developer and creator of Avo. For more than ten years, I built countless admin panels and back-offices for all types of apps. After a while, you start to notice patterns and extract functionality away to make the job easier. I took those patterns and applied them to Avo. Now, in just an hour, a developer can build production-ready applications that with traditional coding techniques take a few days, if not weeks.
Avo is suited to agencies that build a lot of products for their clients and need to move fast and have a beautiful and robust UI, indie developers trying to test out their ideas fast, technical teams in companies of all sizes that need to build internal tools based on Ruby, and start-ups.
Avo runs on top of Ruby on Rails, which is a powerhouse of a framework and uses the most modern tech stack (Hotwire, TailwindCSS, esbuild).
Avo has three main parts that you can choose from:
1. The CRUD UI
2. The Dashboards UI
3. The custom content
The CRUD UI is not something generated that takes maintenance in the long run. Instead, it's a familiar Ruby DSL that's easy to extend with Rails code if you need to break away from it. It features about 30 fields with more advanced ones like (one-liner) file uploads, WYSIWYG, and key-value fields.
The Dashboards are a light layer on top of chartkick where one can query the data from the DB or an endpoint and quickly show the data in metrics, charts, or custom partials.
The Custom Content part is the secret sauce of Avo. It enables the developer to extend it even further using regular Rails code. You get access to partials, controller, action, params, and anything else you need to bring your own logic into the UI on every level (field, resource, tool).
Avo has a free Community version that features the powerful CRUD UI, and a paid Pro version for those who need more power and custom content. We also provide technical support for enterprise-like customers.
I know that Rails devs will immediately think of Active Admin, administrate, and other similar projects, and I want to mention that Avo is not them. It's built on a modern stack, and its mission is to become the back-office app and not just an "obscure admin panel that only the core team visits". I don't want to seem harsh, but I challenge non-believers to give Avo an hour of their time to see how it's different.
TBH, I believe Avo is the secret weapon in any developer's toolbox.
I'm here to answer all of your questions.
Thank you
Show HN: Build Ruby on Rails apps 10x faster – Avo
49 points • 12 comments
Disclaimer, I’m the founder of Avo and it’s a paid product. I work a lot on keeping the product up to date and bring new features on.
I'm glad you mentioned DHH's Rails demo. Along the same lines and taking that productivity even further is this demo for Avo. An extendable framework that helps developers build production-ready apps with configuration.
The pitch is that every app has a way of managing the data. You have a page where you view a list of some items (Index table), a place to see the details of those items (Show view) and some page to update those records (Edit view). Why go and build those things everytime. When we start building apps we don't go building our framework. We don't build Rails for every project, but we use something like Rails, Laravel, NextJS, etc. Going forward with this, why build the admin panel when most of the time you end up with something similar. The views from before, a way to filter things, to sort them, to apply actions, etc.
This is 15 minute long and goes through most (not all) of the features. In the demo I build a room booking app. This is the application the customer will use and not some obscure admin panel where only the support team will reach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK47E7TMXn0
In this, second, 20 minute video I build a production-ready blog admin panel the same way.
Good way of putting things!
Following this.
We're in this bucket as well with our product https://github.com/avo-hq/avo
Nope. Not dead.
I'm building Avo to help developers ship apps faster than ever. Avo is to Rails what Rails is to web development.
Wow. This is like a low-code arduino. Amazing!
I love that the ecosystem is starting to grow again. I'm doing my part in building fantastic developer tools
I'd love if Rails' ecosystem becomes more vibrant like Laravels'
Gotta say. I'm not a big fan of the new design. Now it looks like every other half-done website. I miss the old headline font. It was so legible.
Oh darn! This is going to take a while to get used to...
Dynamically re-use and lazy-load pages using Hotwire
2 points • 0 comments
That's what we did with Avo. We started to create a Laravel Nova clone because we found its utility immense.
Somewhere along the way, we figured out that our users have different needs, and the whole project pivoted to something else, becoming a unique product in itself that better serves our users than we initially thought.
Without imitating the original, we wouldn't have come up with this wonderful product that helps teams save tons of time.
We chose `delayed_job` at Avo for it's simplicity and ease of use.
We are currently thinking about how to break that barrier.
When talking about configuring Avo, it's not really about having the best ruby developer. Instead, you just need a crafty developer.
If you bring in any PHP/JS/Python/INSERT_PROGRAMMING_LANG_HERE developer, they will know how to write that one-liner that adds that new field to a resource.
The alternatives are to use "general purpose" low-code tools (like re-tool) or mash it all together yourself using packages like AG Grid, both having the burden of a steep learning curve and continuous maintenance. With Avo, you need to know a bit of ruby and let it help you get the job done.
Avo is designed to be a bit boring like Rails. You build it; it works, and then you forget about it.
Yup. That's how we think about it. Avo is for Rails what Rails is for web development. It should increase your speed a few times (3x-10x).
Also Avo is so much more than just CRUD. You can easily break out of CRUD and create your own pages and dynamic content in it; dashboards is incoming in the next month; authorization; multi-tenancy; multi-resource search; and much more.
We're trying to figure out a way so we distance ourselver from being just "a prettier activeadmin", but a full on rocket of a developer platform.
Thank you for your compliment!
Credentials to admin panel in one click.
I'm reading this as a CRUD GUI app. Definitely Ruby on Rails coupled with Avo (shameless plug).
It literally takes you less than an hour to create a realistic usable CRUD app (that would take you at least a few days in the traditional way) without learning anything new. Generate a DSL (a Resource) and add one line per field.
Avo knows how to read and display in a rich way, handle creating/updating records using your already in place validations, add associations in a giffy and one-liner file uploads. If the provided fileds are not enough you can create your own. The Rails developer can forget about building a front-ned for their admin panel/back-office area.
When you need to break out from the CRUD, Avo makes it easy using regular Rails code and erb templates.
Maintenance you say? There's no real maintenance here. You don't generate any templates for your CRUD interface, but write declarative code with plenty of options to create the best experience for your users. Avo is beautifully packaged away and will not pollute your app with business files (only configuration files). Everything is abstracted away in the background so you get easy-updates by running one simple `gem update avo` command.
Large teams will move in a uniform way building the same UI all throughout the app.
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