PIES Studio 1.7 · Documentation
The words PIES Studio uses, in the sense it uses them. Where a term means something slightly different here than elsewhere, that is said explicitly.
Application — one product you are building: its data, its screens and its logic, versioned and deployed as a unit. Everything else on this page lives inside an application.
Application definition — the stored description of your application. Not code: a structured document that PIES Studio compiles into code every time you build. Editing on the canvas edits the definition, and so does PIES AI.
Workspace — the list of applications you can open, and the place you create new ones.
Explorer — the tree on the left of the editor: screens, the data model, events, functions and everything else the application contains. If something exists, it is in the explorer.
Data model — all the tables in one application, and the relationships between them.
Table — a collection of records of one kind, with typed columns. Tables become real database tables when you build.
Column — one typed field on a table. The type matters: it decides what widget a form uses and what a filter can do.
Relationship — a link between two tables, so a record on one can refer to records on the other.
Record — one row. The step types that read and write rows (Find Record, Find Multiple Records, Set Record Value, Save Record) are the only way an application touches the database.
Screen — one page in your application. Screens hold widgets and can run an event when they open.
Widget — one thing on a screen: a table, a form, a button, a chart, a container, a text block. Widgets have style (where they sit, how big) and constraints (what they are bound to).
Binding — the link between a widget and the data it shows. An unbound widget renders empty; that is the single most common reason a screen looks blank.
Drawable area — the usable width of the canvas, once the editor's own panels are accounted for. A widget pushed past its right edge is off-screen in the built application even though it looks fine while you drag it.
Custom widget — a view PIES Studio has no built-in widget for — a calendar, a Gantt chart, a specialised layout — written as a code block and given data by the screen.
Code block — the code inside a custom widget. It receives data through named parameters; it does not fetch its own.
Event — something that happens in response to the user or the screen: a button click, a row click, a screen opening. Events drive the interface and call functions; they do not write to the database themselves.
Function — reusable logic that does the work: reading and writing records, calculating, calling out. Functions contain no interface steps.
Step — one instruction inside an event or a function. Steps are linked in order, start to end.
Onload event — the event a screen runs when it opens. This is how a widget that needs data gets it before the user sees the screen.
Build — generating the complete application from the definition and compiling it. Build produces real source code, not an interpretation layer.
PROBLEMS — the panel listing what the build found. Read it before the preview; see the error reference.
Preview — your built application, deployed and running, with a real database. Not a mockup and not a simulation.
Deployment — publishing a built application somewhere it stays running.
PIES AI — the assistant inside the editor. It edits the same application definition you do, through the same rules.
Plan — what PIES AI proposes before it changes anything. It waits for Continue so you can correct the plan rather than the result.
Build receipt — the list of exactly what a PIES AI run changed. The authoritative record of the run.
Rewind — undoing a PIES AI run, taking the application back to before it. Rewinding removes what the run created, so anything you built on top of it goes too.
Pie Loop — the automatic repair cycle: when a build fails, PIES Studio feeds the errors back and tries to fix them, repeating until the build is clean or it cannot make progress.
Artefact — a file or document produced by a run and attached to it.
Local IDE — the editor running on your own machine. It ships in every plan; what changes is what it connects to. Download it at pies.io/download; see the manual, chapter 2.
Hobby — the free plan: the full editor, offline, no account.
Enterprise — PIES Studio installed on infrastructure your organisation controls.
PIES Private AI — the AI engine running inside your own network, so no prompt and no application content leaves it. See the Private AI manual.