August 2020 Summaries

The August 2020 edition of the Gatsby Gazette, curated by Hashim Warren, highlights significant updates and community contributions within the Gatsby ecosystem. Noteworthy developments include the unification of Gatsby's websites, a new pricing plan, and a public roadmap, aiming to make Gatsby and Gatsby Cloud more accessible and cost-effective. The introduction of a new file system Route API streamlines page and route creation, reducing code complexity and potential bugs. Gatsby Cloud now supports GitLab integration, and users can view Lighthouse performance reports in pull requests. Community contributions include updates from Meetup, Emulsify Design System, and CraftCMS, among others, while Gatsby's future plans involve facilitating deployments to Azure Blob Storage. Additionally, the edition covers contributions from the Gatsby community, such as new plugins and bug fixes, and highlights Gatsby's ongoing commitment to accessibility and performance improvements.

Shaundai Person, an account manager and mother, shares her journey of transitioning from a successful career in tech sales to pursuing her passion for coding, despite the challenges of balancing work and parenthood. Initially deterred by stereotypes and a lack of exposure to programming as a viable career path, she discovered her love for coding through customizing websites and realized that a self-taught approach could be practical. Her determination to live without regrets and set a positive example for her child led her to prioritize her time rigorously, sacrificing leisure activities to focus on her goal of becoming a programmer. Through dedication and strategic time management, Shaundai is now preparing to transition to an engineering role within her company, demonstrating that it's never too late to change career paths and pursue one's passion.

Interactive maps serve as a powerful tool for data visualization and analysis, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 map from Johns Hopkins University. Gatsby, a framework built on React, simplifies the creation of such mapping applications by providing tools like Leaflet and React Leaflet. These tools allow developers to integrate geospatial data directly into the Gatsby pipeline, enabling dynamic generation of location data and automatic page creation. Gatsby's Command Line Interface supports Starters to easily scaffold new apps, while its Recipes feature facilitates adding functionalities, such as maps, to existing projects. A practical example of this capability is demonstrated through a restaurant mapping app, which dynamically displays geographic locations on a custom map and creates pages for each location. This process leverages Gatsby's GraphQL API and useStaticQuery React hook to manage data effectively. Additional resources and guides are available for those interested in learning more about building mapping apps with Gatsby.

Gatsby has launched a unified platform, Gatsbyjs.com, consolidating its open-source framework and Gatsby Cloud services to streamline the user experience for developers. This integration aims to eliminate confusion between the previously separate .org and .com domains, providing a single destination for resources and support. Gatsby's roadmap focuses on making web development more accessible through low-code tools and enhanced performance, emphasizing a seamless journey from site creation to deployment. New offerings include tools for improved developer experiences, such as Gatsby Recipes, Gatsby Admin, and Gatsby Desktop, alongside enhancements in performance and routing. The company is also expanding support for additional version control systems and introducing Gatsby Hosting, which offers built-in content delivery network capabilities. Two new Gatsby Cloud pricing plans cater to individual developers and teams, with a commitment to maintaining a free tier for personal projects, ensuring the open-source framework remains accessible and community-driven.

Gatsby is implementing changes to community permissions on its GitHub repository, effective August 12th, 2020, aimed at improving scalability, security, and community experience. The Maintainers team will be removed, and members will become "Outside Collaborators" with "Read" access, limiting their ability to perform certain actions like editing others' pull requests or creating branches. The changes are intended to streamline processes and reduce risks associated with the existing permission structure, while still allowing contributors to perform essential functions such as submitting issues and pull requests. Despite the loss of "Maintainer" status, Gatsby plans to enhance community engagement through initiatives like an online community platform and a Gatsby Ambassador program. These steps are designed to recognize and support contributors' efforts while ensuring a sustainable and secure development ecosystem.

Gatsby Recipes Alpha 2 is the second iteration of a command-line tool designed to simplify common site-building tasks in Gatsby, inspired by the concept of Infrastructure as Code. This release has been significantly improved based on feedback from early adopters, introducing dynamic components that allow for more interactive and automated site setups. New features include a "--develop" mode with hot-reloading for recipe writing and support for running recipes in continuous integration environments. These enhancements aim to make the Gatsby developer experience more efficient and user-friendly, aligning with the vision of making web infrastructure management as straightforward as possible. The tool allows users to automate the setup of various website components, from cloud services to plugins, with the goal of streamlining the site creation process and encouraging more creativity by reducing the time spent on repetitive tasks.

In July 2020, Gatsby celebrated the first anniversary of Gatsby Themes, highlighting their evolution from primarily UI-focused tools to versatile solutions catering to various website functionalities. The month saw significant enhancements, including the update of the popular Blog Theme to version 2.0, which now offers improved image support, SEO, and customization options through Theme-UI presets. Additionally, a new i18n theme was released to facilitate multilingual site development with specialized React components. Gatsby Cloud introduced Workspaces, allowing users to manage sites from any GitHub repository and offering separate subscriptions for better organization. The beta of a new WordPress source plugin was also launched, promising improved integration with Gatsby Cloud. Performance improvements were achieved by changing how static queries are processed, leading to faster build times. The Gatsby team engaged in various community activities, including interviews, podcasts, and presentations, while community members contributed with new themes, plugins, and resources. The ecosystem saw the release of a new GraphCMS source plugin and Strapi's blog starter, further enhancing the Gatsby development experience.