TL;DR: Launch Docker image or create new TopLogic app with Maven.

The TopLogic engine is a development tool for web applications. TopLogic supports a model-based no-code approach in combination with in-app development. This means that the application development starts with the installation of the engine and one creates the application models, configurations and interfaces WYSIWYG via built-in modeling tools and immediately has an executable application. For simple applications, this can eliminate the build-deploy cycle altogether.

However, TopLogic is so flexible that you are not locked into either the no-code approach or in-app development, but can switch to full-stack development later if needed without losing or duplicating work products. TopLogic's openness means that the engine can be extended almost at will to implement any special requirement. A classic process model with source repository, version control, build, testing, continuous integration and deploy is also seamlessly supported. If you start the engine in development mode, you have the option of exporting models and configurations generated in-app to the development environment and transferring them from there to the source repository and the build process.

Depending on the use case, there are different ways to install the TopLogic engine, or to integrate it into the application development.

Try TopLogic locally on my computer

The easiest way to try TopLogic locally on any machine (see recommended system requirements) is to run a pre-configured variant as a Docker image. In doing so, you accept the following limitations, but you don't need any developer tools on your machine:

• Only in-app development
• No need to transfer the work results to a development environment

Just try it out, then continue with: Launching pre-configured TopLogic as a Docker image. Of course, you can also start a TopLogic development project locally without deploying to a web container (see below).

Install TopLogic productively for pure in-app development.

No build process is needed for this. A pre-configured TopLogic can be installed directly and an application can be pronounced via in-app editors. Since all configuration steps are performed directly in the running production application, this approach is particularly suitable for

• small applications with a manageable number of users
• Replacing an Excel sheet with a professional web application

Continue with:

a) Install pre-configured TopLogic as a Debian package.

b) Installing pre-configured TopLogic via cloud init.

Starting a development project with TopLogic

Creating a new application based on TopLogic offers the most possibilities, but requires some developer know-how:

• Checking work products into source repository.
• Collaborate with multiple developers via a version control system (e.g. Git).
• Test, build, deploy via a continuous integration system (e.g. Jenkins).
• Decoupling of development, test, and production systems.
• Integrate function extensions via code in development environment (e.g. Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, ...)
• Deployment as Debian package (deb), Docker image(e.g. in Kubernetes) or as WAR in own application container (e.g. Apache Tomcat, IBM WebSphere, ...)

Continue with: Creating a new TopLogic app with Maven.