June 2018 Summaries

In this article, the author discusses a new tool available for .NET developers that helps create strongly-typed C# classes directly from their Contentful content model, eliminating the need to write boilerplate code. The tool leverages the "global tools" feature in .NET Core 2.1 and can be installed using the dotnet tool install command. Once installed, users can run commands such as `contentful.modelscreator.cli --help` to list available options, including specifying a namespace or path for generated classes. The tool automatically resolves field types and names properties according to Contentful's field id and validation rules. Additionally, it is available as a plugin in Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code, allowing users to create models from their content model with minimal command-line interaction.

This technique, known as LQIP (Low-Quality Image Preview), is used to improve the user experience by loading images in a non-ideal situation without losing the user's attention. It involves embedding small thumbnails of images as CSS backgrounds, which are then gradually replaced with full-sized images when available. This technique was initially introduced in 2013 but has gained popularity recently due to its effectiveness in reducing page load times and improving user engagement. Facebook has taken this technique a step further by using the same file header for all images and only sending the actual image data, resulting in smaller preview sizes. The technique is also known as SQIP (Shape-Quipped Image Preview) when combined with SVG shapes to generate vectorized primitive versions of images. This approach offers a unique, modernist preview style while achieving file size and compression possibilities that are close to the original LQIP technique.

The GatsbyJS team has been actively working on the popular static site generator, with recent updates including dependency upgrades and new features such as a collaboration with Google to add analytics and machine-learning-powered prefetching, as well as a new "ludicrous mode" for faster hot-reloading. The upcoming version 2 is expected to introduce improvements to developer experience, including a new component called StaticQuery that will interact with render props. Additionally, the team has been working on making it easier for developers to build Gatsby sites using data from their favorite API providers, and has made significant progress in this area. Overall, GatsbyJS continues to be a rapidly evolving project with a strong focus on developer experience and adoption.

We are always looking for ways to engage and help our users understand and use Contentful in faster and better ways, so we started exploring tools for providing interactive, step-by-step tutorials in various languages, with Jupyter Notebooks being a suitable choice due to its support for data visualizations, in-browser code editing and execution, and ability to host the notebooks securely using BinderHub. We set up an example space in Contentful to facilitate our storytelling and created content types such as Person and Scatter Data to guide users through building a solution to a problem, including displaying content, rendering HTML, and showing graphs. The process of creating an interactive tutorial involves listing objectives, describing resources required, finding a theme, defining steps, writing the story, and outlining the tutorial structure, which we applied in our example using Markdown and Jupyter code snippets. We are now working on expanding and refining the project to support all Contentful's supported languages, making it easier for first-time users to get the best learning tools available.