Cubic

I am going to use the recently published CubicleSoft File Explorer widget as the basis of this post to show the process used to create a rather complex ~8,000 line Javascript widget from scratch with no external dependencies. It took approximately 2 months to go from concept/idea to complete widget implementation with full keyboard, mouse, and touch input support that works great on desktop, tablets, and even mobile devices! There are many things I learned along the way. So while things are still fresh in my mind, I'd like to jot down and share the process involved. The above is a live demo of the widget. Feel free to interact with it for a little bit, but don't get too distracted. There's an article to read! Alright, the best place to start when designing a widget of this magnitude is the actual design. I used to use tools like Photoshop, Adobe XD, and even paper and pencil to mock up user interfaces. While those have some value, when designing for the web, ...