Deploying the Admin UI as a separate app

[skid]

Are there any examples of a setup where the admin UI is deployed as a standalone application?

[michaelbromley]

Not that I know of, but if you are [compiling a custom UI using ui-devkit[(https://www.vendure.io/docs/plugins/extending-the-admin-ui/#compiling-as-a-deployment-step), you should be able to take the generated directory and serve it using whatever means you like, making sure to include a rewrite rule so that 404s get rewritten to index.html so that SPA routing works correctly.

[obaviet]

Admin UI Vendure is really very old compared to its technology platform. I wish the development team could refresh it.

[michaelbromley]

@obaviet ah ok got it, thanks for the feedback. Right now I use a slightly modified version of the Clarity component library, which I like because it is well suited for information-dense UIs and looks decent too. The main goal right now is for it to be functional, but for sure there are aspects that can be improved from an aesthetic perspective.

[obaviet]

@michaelbromley If you want to be different, you should also design nice and easy to customize fontend, because out there as far as I see all the open source have bad default fontend. Although this is against the philosophy from your point of view as the fontend is just a demo. However, it is a fact that the old or new platforms can thrive in part because of the diverse and beautiful fontend.

[obaviet]

and you can sell that fontend. Why not when we have a revenue stream

[michaelbromley]

@obaviet I totally agree. The lack of good storefront is a big barrier to entry for headless in general. I am unable to dedicate the time to create a beautiful, extensible storefront application - entire companies exist to solve that single problem and even they struggle to get it perfectly right. So my strategy is to partner with the likes of Vercel and Vue Storefront to build integrations with Vendure. In fact, in the coming weeks we should be launching the first version on the Vue Storefront integration.

[obaviet]

That is good news. I know that in the long run the platform owners will not design the fontend but focus on the backend and leave that playing field to the developers. However, our platform is just the beginning, there are not many developers yet, why don't you make it for revenue. hehe