Java World Knowledge Sharing Portal: Revolutionizing UI Development with AI: A Look at Stagewise

AI is already a powerful force in backend and middleware development, but its application in the frontend, particularly with frameworks like Vue, React, and Angular, has a unique set of challenges. While large language models (LLMs) can generate UI based on training data, the real complexity arises when you need to modify an existing UI. A seemingly simple change could ripple through the entire project, creating a tangled mess that’s a nightmare to untangle. This is where a tool like Stagewise comes in, acting as an AI-powered co-pilot for UI developers.

Lets try to integrate the same. As shown below we have simple nextjs useclient exmaple that increase the counter by one when we click on it.

Stagewise works on top of your existing project, running on a separate port so it doesn’t interfere with your current development environment. It’s designed for simple integration, using npx so there’s no need to install additional npm packages. It will, however, prompt you to save a stagewise.json file in your project for future reference.

Getting Started with Stagewise

Let’s walk through an example using a simple Next.js application. We’ll start with a basic counter component that increments a number on a button click.

Start your local app in dev mode. pnpm dev # or npm run dev
Open a new terminal in your project directory. cd C:\vscode-nextjs-workspace\siddhunextjsproject
Run Stagewise. npx stagewise@latest

The first time you run it, Stagewise will ask you to log in with your Google account. After that, it will open your application on a new port (typically 3001) and display an interactive chat box that allows you to interact with your UI using AI.

Making Changes with AI Prompts

Now, let’s use the Stagewise chat box to make a UI change. Imagine you want to change the button color to green and add a parrot icon. Instead of manually editing the code, you simply type your request into the chat box:

Prompt: “Change the button color to green with a parrot icon.”

Stagewise will then analyze your UI and code, make the necessary modifications, and show you a preview of the changes. It will modify the relevant files, making the requested updates to your UI.

Fine-Tuning Changes with Element Selection

What if you want to be more specific and only change a particular element? Stagewise allows you to do that as well. You can select a specific div or element directly in the UI and then provide a prompt for a targeted change.

For example, you could select a block of text and then prompt the AI:

Prompt: “Change the font to Comic Sans and make it red.”

Stagewise will apply these changes only to the selected element, providing a level of control and precision that’s difficult to achieve with general-purpose AI tools.

Stagewise acts as a safeguard, ensuring that small UI tweaks don’t become large-scale headaches. By allowing you to make targeted, AI-powered changes, it helps you maintain control over your codebase while accelerating your development workflow.