Hi everyone,

I’d like to learn what’s involved in developing my own apps for my Invision Community. I’m on an Invision-hosted plan, so my first question is what development and installation options are available with that setup.

There are some great third-party developers out there, and I appreciate their work. The concern is that an app can become essential to a community, and if its developer disappears or can no longer keep it updated, it can turn into a nightmare—especially when that affects upgrades or important features.

I’d like to become more self-sufficient by learning to build small apps and maintain custom functionality for my own community.

A few questions:

• Can I develop and install my own apps on my hosted plan? Are there restrictions or plan requirements?

• Which languages and skills should I learn first?

• What tools and development environment would I need?

• How would I test an app safely before installing it on my live community?

• Is there current documentation or a beginner-friendly tutorial you’d recommend?

• What would be a sensible first project?

I understand that maintaining my own apps would also mean taking responsibility for compatibility and updates. I’m looking to start small and understand what’s possible with my hosted setup.

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!

10 hours ago, HDiddy said:

Can I develop and install my own apps on my hosted plan? Are there restrictions or plan requirements?

You cannot develop on a cloud instance. You would need a classic self hosted license if you are developing applications, as you would need it on your own environment with developer tools

10 hours ago, HDiddy said:

Which languages and skills should I learn first?

PHP, MySQL, Javascript

10 hours ago, HDiddy said:

What tools and development environment would I need?

It depends on your own preference as a developer. You need to look into learning the above, and that in turn will tell you want environments you use. Most will have an IDE or some sort, and use a local LAMP stack. If you are unsure on what those are, you need to research those.

10 hours ago, HDiddy said:

Is there current documentation or a beginner-friendly tutorial you’d recommend?

What would be a sensible first project?

We do not currently have developer documentation available. However in the age of AI, its not difficult to create your own really. And as a developer, you would expect to be able to read and interpret the code itself. What I would say here, is you are asking for a beginner friendly way to be a developer. There is no such thing. Software development is something you need to learn, and people do as a career. It isnt something you are going to quickly learn if you have no knowledge in development at all. From the questions above, its clear you dont unfortunately.