What you can build
With Visual you build the same kind of software a team of developers would: real products that people sign up to, pay in and come back to.
- Websites and web apps: an online shop, a booking system, a marketplace, a dashboard for your team, a community, a course platform. Or a simple site: a portfolio, a blog, a CV.
- Phone apps for iPhone and Android: from one description, ready for the App Store and Google Play.
- Both together: a website and phone apps that share the same accounts, data and payments.
What Piye builds is yours. It lives on your computer as a normal project, and when you publish, it runs on your own accounts.
How it works
- Describe your idea in your own words, or start from one of 80 templates. Add a logo, photos or documents if you have them. See Describe your idea.
- Piye plans it with you when the idea is big: the pages, what the app keeps, and how people move through it. For a small change, it simply makes it.
- Piye builds it. You watch it come together in the preview. When it's done, Piye opens every screen, checks that things work, and fixes what's broken before you look.
- You shape it. Ask for changes in the chat, or click on any part of the preview to change its words, colours, pictures and spacing yourself. See Visual Edit.
- You try it like your customers will: in the preview, on iPhone and Android phones on your computer, and on your own phone. See Phone apps.
- You publish it: the website on the internet, at your own address, and the phone apps in the App Store and Google Play. Piye checks everything first and walks you through each step. See Publish your website.
The Visual window
At the top of the window:
- The project menu (left) shows the open project and lets you open another or start a new one.
- Visual and Code switch between the two sides of Piye. Visual is where you are; Code is the developer's view of the same project.
- Invite brings a developer or a partner into the project. See Bring in a developer.
- Marketplace connects services to Piye.
- Timeline (the clock) lists every change, with undo. See History.
- Outbox (the envelope) shows the emails your app sent while you build. See Outbox.
- Publish puts your app online and in the stores.
- Your account (the round button, right) shows your plan, credits and settings.
Under it, three views of your app:
- Blueprint: a map of your app, its parts and how they connect. See The Blueprint.
- Preview: your app, running. See Preview.
- Plan: what Piye understood your app does, who uses it, and every line it checks on the running app. Export to Google Docs makes a copy you can share.
Beside them is the chat, where you talk with Piye. See Talking with Piye.
What Piye gives your app
Apps need things like sign-in, emails and payments. While you build, Piye provides them so everything works right away, with no accounts to create:
- Sign-in with email or "Continue with Google";
- Emails your app sends (welcome messages, receipts, sign-in codes);
- Payments with Stripe, in test mode;
- Phone verification by text message;
- A database to keep your app's information.
When you publish, your app moves onto your own accounts, and Piye shows you exactly what's needed. See What Piye gives your app.
Visual and Code are one project
Everything Visual builds is real code, in a normal project folder. If you work with a developer, they open the same project in Code (or their own tools) and see exactly what Piye built. Their changes show up in your preview. See Bring in a developer.
Credits
Building and changing apps uses Piye's AI, paid with credits from your plan. Each build and change shows the credits it used when it finishes. See Credits and usage.