February 2020 Summaries

Ionic, a rapidly growing startup that commercializes open-source app development tools, is hiring for several engineering positions, including roles in sales engineering and solutions architecture, to support its work with large enterprise companies. These roles, which are remote-friendly and available in Madison, WI, or anywhere in the US, involve helping enterprise clients maximize their use of Ionic's technology, with opportunities to work on diverse and mission-critical applications for well-known brands. The company emphasizes profitability and deliberate growth, distinguishing itself in the VC-backed startup landscape, and offers a dynamic work environment focused on innovation and software design excellence. Founded by an engineer and a designer, Ionic values creativity and engineering expertise, aiming to shape the frontend technology ecosystem. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply and can reach out to CEO Max Lynch for more information.

Ionic has raised an additional $6 million in funding, led by Arthur Ventures with participation from General Catalyst, bringing its total funding to $18 million. Despite being on the cusp of profitability and not needing further financial support, Ionic aims to build a sustainable company by focusing on responsible spending and customer satisfaction rather than pursuing aggressive growth or becoming a unicorn. This approach, which aligns with investor expectations, has contributed to Ionic's rapid growth in the enterprise sector, adding 150 enterprise customers over two years and powering mission-critical apps. The company's mission to transform every business into a software company resonates with its users, offering a blend of developer friendliness, productivity, and cost-effectiveness. While shifting its commercial focus to the enterprise, Ionic continues to support its open-source community, maintaining the growth of the Ionic Framework and expanding its ecosystem to include React, Vue, and the broader web development community. With the goal of simplifying app development, Ionic plans to introduce new tools and ideas to enhance accessibility, affordability, and efficiency in building apps, all while maintaining a commitment to its community.

In a 2020 tutorial by Ely Lucas, the basics of testing Ionic React applications using Jest and React Testing Library (RTL) are explored. Jest, a popular testing framework developed by Facebook, and RTL, which allows testing of React components without relying on internal implementation details, are both included in new Ionic React projects, simplifying the setup process. The tutorial guides users through creating a simple to-do app, demonstrating how to write and run tests using Jest and RTL, including testing component rendering, state changes, and user interactions. It also covers the use of Ionic React Test Utils for dealing with web component testing challenges in JSDOM, and provides insights into mocking HTTP requests with Jest. The tutorial emphasizes the benefits of test-driven development, ensuring reliability and confidence in application updates, while offering resources for further learning and a demo repository for expanded functionality.

Ionic Framework 5, also known as Magnesium, introduces several updates, including iOS 13 design enhancements, a new API for custom animations, revamped Ionicons, updated colors, and improved component customization across Angular, React, and Vue integrations. This major release simplifies the upgrade process for users of Ionic 4 by adhering to semantic versioning and utilizing Web Components to separate API changes. Key design updates reflect iOS 13's aesthetic changes, such as a more dynamic Segment design, collapsible headers, and a Swipe to Close Modal feature. The release also introduces Ionic Animations for high-performance animations and Ionicons 5 with a new icon set. Additionally, Ionic 5 offers default new colors, redesigned starter templates, and enhanced customization capabilities through CSS variables and Shadow DOM, allowing for easier theming and styling. Support for Angular Ivy is also provided, promising improved load performance by utilizing only necessary renderer components. The Ionic team expresses gratitude to the community for their support in achieving this release.

Ionicons 5 is a newly released set of open-source icons designed for use across web, iOS, Android, and desktop applications, offering over 1200 redesigned icons with distinct variants like outline, fill, and sharp. This version emphasizes a unified design approach inspired by both iOS and Android, allowing developers greater control over icon selection for each platform while maintaining automatic switching for certain platform-specific icons. Ionicons 5 is now distributed as SVG icons instead of font icons, enhancing performance and simplicity. It is compatible with Material Design styles, enabling seamless integration with other design systems. The release has seen widespread adoption, with over 1.2 million monthly installs, and future updates are planned to expand the icon library based on community demand, while ensuring compatibility with the Ionic Framework and other technologies.

Ionic has announced the re-release of its CLI package under a new name, @ionic/cli, to address user confusion regarding versioning between the Ionic framework and the CLI tool. Previously, users often mistook the CLI version for the entire framework version due to the shared name "Ionic." To update, users are instructed to uninstall the old package and install the new one, aligning with a trend seen in other frameworks like Angular and Vue, which have also adopted scoped package names. This change coincides with the release of CLI version 6.0, bringing new features and improvements, and the old package will no longer receive updates. Feedback from the community has been positive, and users are encouraged to upgrade to benefit from the latest enhancements.