Wix Velo Introduction: Basic Tips for Beginners

An Overview On Wix Velo

Interested in developing web applications but don't know where and how to start? Don't worry, we've got your back. You can use Wix Velo and this will sort out the task for you. 

So, what is Velo you may ask? Technically Velo is an open development platform that makes web development easy for web developers. It is an extendable platform that means that you can always increase the functionality and interactions just by using its APIs. It’s more like when you will use the Velo API, new features will be available to you with the help of them. 

No matter if it's frontend or backend, you can do serverless coding. Now, what is serverless coding, one may ask?

You all must be familiar with laundry services. Is it yours? No.

But can you use it? Yes.

You can use it at your comfort and according to your requirement. That is the same case with serverless coding.

So, how does it work?

You are out on dinner with your friends. All of them ordered good food and drinks while you chose to stay loyal to your good old salad with a  sip of cold water. While the bill was being paid, you were asked to pay one-fourth of it since you are one of the four friends on the dinner table. “But I just had a salad with a glass of free water”, screamed your inner soul. That feels unfair right? Paying for things that were not used to your benefit seems so unfair and that is where all this concept comes from. To go out with a proper plan where you pay for all you have. This is where you go off the normal hosting propaganda and move to an effective solution. Similarly, when you go off the server that means you are not using a particular server to the fullest and so Serverless coding goes by the principle of pay for what you use and as you use it. That way you save a lot of money since you only invest in what is being used and not for all other services that are not being used.

Now the main question is, is Velo only for beginners? No, Velo is for anyone who likes to work smart. It is one of the tools preferred even by many professionals.

Imagine you are sitting by your balcony, it is a nice rainy day and your favorite food just arrives at your doorstep, but who wants to leave this view of beautiful droplets hitting the windowpane and go to the door to get the food. If only we had a genie who would do the job for us, how our happiness would have increased. But unfortunately, gennies don't exist in reality but you know what can't happen in reality is done technically and that is what makes us smart full-stack developers. Wix's Velo just does this for you.

You need an idea in your mind, you need initial workups to set things up for you, and then just as genie did, even Velo will fasten your task. But, you can’t expect it to be magical. Remember magic works only when enough efforts are made. 

So, when you have an idea and you lack proper implementation, Velo APIs do it for you.

Also, who are we even kidding when we are saying that we have enough time to code. We all know the tech industry and enough time is two concepts of a parallel universe. We need products even before we have an idea. Well, that is how it goes. Velo helps you with that too. It saves you a lot of time of code and thus makes the job easy for you.

Now the time that you were spending on coding the website from scratch is saved. Rather you only have to come up with the idea and basic knowledge of calling out the APIs, which anyways will be covered in a glimpse later in this article. APIs help you by providing the services that you might require indirectly. It helps you to access the services that we would require from a particular server.

 Now you can develop faster and deploy even faster. And don't worry, your work is safe with Velo. Velo ensures its customer safety. They use cryptography hash codes for safety purposes, about which a small paragraph won’t be enough. But for now, what’s important is that it is safe.

The amazing UI features provided by Velo are just another feather in the cap. So, elaborating on this, I would say that you buy what you see. And so it is great to have a good UI since only then the services will be easily accessible to people. You know they say that if you want to walk faster, you walk alone but if you want to go a long way, you walk along with a great team. And so collaborations become important. Collaborate with clients and teammates from different parts of the world and help them create the best of both worlds. It’s very important to have a platform from where all these details can be easily collected. The various links to visit their profiles, their fields of interest, etc.

Velo's powerful Database Management helps you to create and manage all the data dynamically. So, now the collaboration and connectivity become better.

Imagine having that one best friend who walks you through all the aspects of life and helps you shine like a boss. Well, now full stack developers spell that friend as V-E-L-O. It gives your idea implementation and helps you test and integrate with services like Google Cloud.

Now you can use Velo and earn your certification too. So, what are you waiting for? Explore all the amazingness with Velo and take your first step towards being a  successful full-stack developer.

How to display data from a separate source, using Velo API?

It is a warm summer evening and you are all set for your next trip to the beautiful streets of a small Japanese village. To find a place to live or get the basic things that you might need, the first thing you should know is how to communicate. Well, it is pretty tough to understand the local languages and get a grip of them easily and that is where the translator comes into action. It will take the piece of information from you and then deliver it to the locals and access the services you wish to have.

That’s exactly what an API does. It helps you to access the services indirectly. We don’t need everything, but the part that we need will be given to us. Just how you get only your account info on Instagram and not everyone’s. You access your database and that little login activity that you do is API for you. Here everything is pre-coded and all you do is enter the inputs. It’s all pre-compiled.

Velo API helps you to access the databases related to your sites and various Wix applications. That means now you have full control over your site. I’ll just add a small code snippet to help you out if you are new to it and also just before I do that, I would just like to tell you that you need a little bit of running knowledge of JavaScript before you begin.

import { getJSON } from 'wix-fetch';
const url = "https://api.exchangeratesapi.io/latest";
let currencyOptions = [
 { "value": "USD", "label": "US Dollars" },
 { "value": "EUR", "label": "Euros" },
 { "value": "JPY", "label": "Japanese Yen" },
];
$w.onReady(function () {
 populateDropdowns();
 $w('#calculateButton').onClick((event) => {
   calculateCurrency();
 })
});
function populateDropdowns() {
 $w('Dropdown').options = currencyOptions;
 $w('Dropdown').selectedIndex = 0;
}
function calculateCurrency() {
 let initialAmount = $w("#sourceAmount").value;
 let sourceSymbol = $w("#sourceCurrency").value;
 let targetSymbol = $w("#targetCurrency").value;
 let fullUrl = `${url}?base=${sourceSymbol}&symbols=${targetSymbol}`;
 getJSON(fullUrl)
   .then(json => {
     $w("#targetAmount").value = initialAmount * json.rates[targetSymbol];
   })
}

This piece of code was done to convert currency. But the main thing that you learned from this is the call to APIs. They can be very helpful if only you know how to get the work done. Call them, list the task’s function properly and you’ll be done.

I hope this helped you out a bit. Keep reading and following for more of such feeds. And if you are a developer and have not yet explored Velo API, then do it now, Smart work > Hard work, any day will save you tons of time, and my friend, time is money. So you better invest it wisely while you can.

Check out Velo API to discover all the features that can be extremely helpful to you. Happy coding!