Using Shopify App Bridge to Build More Beneficial and Faster apps

Using Shopify App Bridge to Build More Beneficial and Faster apps

The embedded apps are a vital part of the Shopify ecosystem. This is because they allow merchants to add functionality in their prevalent shops without a familiar environment for the Shopify admin. Shopify developers recognize the opportunity of creating embedded apps to offer merchants with more capabilities that will help them grow their businesses. With time, the embedded apps have been evolving from the little experiment to becoming powerful. This is because initially, they used tools known as the embedded app software development kit and the point of sale software development in building the embedded App. Since the app ecosystem has been growing, the available tools are not able to keep up with the needs of the developers. That led the Shopify Unite 2019 to introduce a unified tool for developing the embedded App on all Shopify platforms. The combined tool is known as the Shopify App Bridge.

The Shopify App Bridge is a javascript library that helps you in embedding your App directly inside Shopify. Also, it works with the embedded apps in admin and the Shopify POS. These help in the creation of a seamless experience for its merchants. It allows you to embed anywhere the user interacts with the admin. With its single front end, it empowers the POS, desktop and all the mobile experiences. All the apps built with this tool perform better and flexible with better features that can leverage hardware in a way no other Shopify app can. In this article, I will look at the opportunities that the Shopify app developments can influence by the use of the Shopify App Bridge.

Performance and flexibility

Before the invention of Shopify App Bridge, App that needed to be used on both the Shopify POS and the admin would require the use of separate client-side libraries. That is one would be used for the Shopify POS while the other one got embedded in the web admin. The Shopify App Bridge has since reduced this requirement to a single library, which allows a more unified user-experience and streamlined development flow. Apart from positively influencing consistency, the Shopify App Bridge develops efficiency, which makes it load four times faster than those Apps that have been built using EASDK or POSSDK.

Actions and action sets

Actions it is a new method through which Shopify App Bridge interacts with Shopify. The use of actions helps you gain control over several Shopify UI elements. These include; the top bar, modals, buttons, resource pickers, and loading indicators, which are all available and can make your App to feel like it has indigenous Shopify experience. Actions can dispatch to ensure things happen in the context, like toasting messages or even activating contextual save bars.

The action’s power is displayed when they are combined into action sets or the persisted ones that you can efficiently dispatch or subscribe to at any time. When creating the action set, its configuration is usually persisted hence shared between your apps and Shopify. In that case, both sides are aware of the state of each of the two action sets. Therefore, you can tell whether a modal is open and what lives inside the title bar, among other things concerning the Shopify app. All the action sets follow similar interfaces to enhance keeping the API consistent and straightforward. The four interfaces followed by the action sets include; creating, setting, subscriptions and dispatching.

Creation– it is used in initializing an action set and comes with options.

Setting– this stage allows you to update the configurations of the actions set available, for instance, in the updating of the title bars.

Subscription– it helps notify you of the happening in the Shopify UI like incase a modal is closed or when it is opened.

Dispatch– it send s actions to the Shopify to activate the Apps functionality.

Apart from a few exceptions, the process of action set creation stores the configurations inside the shared state of the App but cannot so much on its own. Eventually, the action set gets its actions ready for the user to dispatch.

Actions

The action types are defined as the actions which are present in the action sets. They are different messages that are sent between your apps and Shopify to either do some tasks or notify you of important events. There are two action sets available in the Shopify app bridge. These two include the toast action set and the loading action set. The toast action set is the use of the message to show or clear something. On the other hand, the loading action set entails starting and stopping. As it continues to grow, Shopify App Bridge will be able to add more action types to offer more capabilities to this tool.

Once you create an action set, you may dispatch the actions that it contains, and then subscribe to its actions that Shopify dispatches. For example, when its user closes a modal from the admin, Shopify will then dispatch the close action with which your App can subscribe. Your App can offer a callback to be executed when its actions dispatches.

The combination of the API, which entails the creation, setting, dispatching and subscribing together with the statically defined actions, makes the Shopify App Bridge provide you with the granular control with limited cognitive overhead. Also, it makes it more extensive. Therefore, the use of the actions shifts from the ways tied to specific visual designs. Instead, it offers you with compassable building blocks that are grouped according to their functionalities. Besides, action sets persist state transparently, which allows you to inspect the initial state of your App by the use of the Redux DevTools or by replaying previous actions to help you in debugging.

Hardware

With its ability to accessing powerful device hardware, the Shopify App Bridge ships include the camera and the NFC reader by using scanner action. The App uses feature detection to help know the type of device they work on hence request accessibility to hardware on mobile devices.  With the availability, the feature detection dispatches an action to allow the apps to know the available hardware and start scanning.

Change management

In the contemporary world, technology moves fast, which means keeping up with constant changes is quite challenging. The Shopify App Bridge strikes a balance between delivering updated features by the use of strict tools like the SemVer library version and stability so that its user can have full control against the usual adoption cycle.

Tips on undertaking smooth Shopify app development process

Being a dynamic marketplace for almost all web developers who create and sell them on the Shopify app stores, Shopify follows the exact development process. The development is a useful way of making your retail store outstanding yet unique. For a more professional and features loaded apps on the Shopify site, it is vital to keep these tips in your mind.

1. Select perfect programming language– building an app with any particular language it gives the advantage to its users. For an effective Shopify app development process, ensure to choose the hosting platform that does not need high maintenance. Since it is a versatile platform, it supports many different languages. Thus there is a need to pick a programming language that you know.
2. Create themes locally– monitoring themes is a fundamental step of Shopify app developments. Shopify provides many tools that help in monitoring the themes.
3. Pay attention to the loading time and its performance– ensure your platform is accurate, and you understand the depth of its themes and other vital tools.
4. testing your webhooks– locally test your webhooks to avoid time wastage with pushing constant code or servers.
5. Try abstraction whenever possible– while designing the themes for your clients to ensure that your clients are primary users of the Shopify app store. The abstraction of the features averts the hardcore setting into the themes.

Merchant experience

After embedding your Shopify app with the Shopify app bridge, it is possible to build a great user experience that is familiar, easier-to-use for all its merchants. Also, it helps in ensuring that its involvement is consistent regardless of where the App is being used. Whether on the web or mobile App for either IOS or Android.

Developer’s experience

The Shopify app bridge helps in the creation of an outstanding merchant experience and offers excellent developer experience as well. This helps in the reduction of the time development, which gives you a single way of accessing these features across varying platforms inclusive of Shopify mobile, admin, Shopify POS and other app extensions. It ensures that the user experience is consistent whenever they are using the App. Besides, it offers accessible helpers for page printing from your application by redirecting the users to other parts of the admin.

Conclusion

The Shopify app bridge helps the user in building embedded apps faster, create new opportunities for more integrated functional products for the merchants. Begin leveraging all the opportunities today to keep you up-to-date on the journey to make the App even better. It is the perfect place for the app developers to earn through developing custom apps for Shopify merchants. The Shopify app development can become a passive source of income for the developers. But with the custom apps, Shopify store owners can offer you with unique functional experience to their prevalent customers. Therefore, this is a win-win situation whereby both the app developers and the user collaborate over the ecommerce website to create a new foundation of success.