A number of people have asked me about the best way to develop some cool new web app for UNIX.COM.

In today's "very easy web dev" world, developers do not need to be burdened (like I am) to the "back end" of the site. The best way to develop web apps is to build the application on your desktop and pull data from this site with an AJAX call that returns data in JSON format.

First, I recommend you follow these steps from Bootstrap-Vue.js

Docs - BootstrapVue

For example, if you want to write some killer app for the forums, you would use node.js to build a vuejs-bootstrap app, or even vuetify with AJAX to query the DB and pull the data from the DB and process as a JSON object from the this server.

Hence, all you need is the the structure of the database tables and then you can write a quick PHP query to get the data from the DB and of course format it as JSON and return it to your app and process using VueJS, Vuetify, VueJS-Bootstrap etc.

I can easily write this API for anyone who wants to get started.

Then, after your app is built and tested we upload the app to the server and run it.

Honestly, the back end of a server is a legacy mess, LOL.

The best way to enjoy developing cool web apps is to get started with VueJS-Bootstrap.

Bootstrap Vue

Or Vuetify:

Vue.js Material Component Framework Vuetify.js

If you want get started, just let me know what DB tables you want (user, post, threads, etc) and I'll post the table structures. If you are really interested, I can write the backend PHP API for you.

Then after you have this backend REST API, you can write all the cool apps you want using VueJS on your favorite desktop IDE. I strong recommend VSC:


Visual Studio Code - Code Editing. Redefined

Here is a very good way to get started:

Docs - BootstrapVue

Alternatively:

Quick Start - Vuetify.js

It's quick and easy to get fully set up on your computer or laptop at home and develop apps for the forum. You don't need backend server access, just a REST endpoint for data, which I can easily provide.