Astro Weekly #6

Greetings, Astro Weekly readers!

Glad to have you join us for the latest edition of our newsletter. As always, we're geared up to explore the freshest trends, tips, and updates from the world of Astro. Let's dive in and ignite that inspiration for your next project! 🚀

This week month in Astro ✨

What’s new in Astro - October 2023 🆕

October was an action-packed month for Astro, featuring the exciting releases of Astro 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4! With so much happening, it's easy to miss out on the stuff in between — if only there was a weekly newsletter to keep you covered ;)

Fortunately, Elian Van Cutsem has our back with a new monthly recap on the official Astro blog. The update offers a comprehensive rundown of all the recent Astro developments, community accolades, new tools, and more!

Of course, you can still receive your weekly dose of Astro updates right here in Astro Weekly. And on that note, let’s check out what’s new in the community.

Astro Community 🧑‍🚀

Improving the sharing experience in Astro 📦

If you’re building a project that includes a blog, it’s likely you’ll want to implement features that enable others to easily share your ideas and content with a wider audience.

Adam McKerlie recently published Astro Social Share, a small yet mighty package that adds simple social media sharing options to your Astro project.

Adam has followed this up with an insightful blog post that covers everything from building the Astro component, creating an NPM package, to publishing on NPM.

Add comments to your Astro site 💬

After you’re done adding sharing options, it’s likely you’re also going to want to include a comment section to allow others to leave their own thoughts and feedback.

Indeed, adding a comments section to your blog posts is one way to engage with your readers. But, when you're working with a static site generator like Astro, adding a comments system can present some challenges.

Fret not. It turns out it’s actually a lot simpler than you thought! Youssouf El Azizi has written an excellent guide that walks you through the process of adding Giscus to your Astro site in just a matter of minutes. 🤯

If you have something awesome you’d like to share with the Astro community, you can reach me at [email protected] or via DM on X

AstroXtra 💫

What’s this? A new section?! 😱 Each week I plan to share a highlight or two from the artist formerly known as Twitter.

Perfect for those tidbits of wisdom (or humour) that may not necessarily need more than 280 characters or a blog post, like this quick demo of the new experimental dev overlay in Astro 3.4 from StackBlitz.

Astro Showcase 🌠

If you haven’t been living under a rock this past month, there’s a high probability you’ve seen at least one of the hundreds of viral videos across Instagram and TikTok of the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Giant pumpkins and Spider-Man aside, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers U2 are currently amidst a 5-month residency at the Sphere for U2:UV Achtung Baby Live.

U2 Space Baby — the first app integration of its kind — is a companion app built with Astro, allowing fans to tune in in real time.

If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, check out Chris’ case study for more details on the technical challenges and full tech stack behind the app.

Would you like your work to be featured in our Astro Showcase? Get in touch at [email protected] or DM me on X

Beyond the Astrosphere 🪐

What caught my eye outside of Astro this week…

• BoostrFM — weekly chat with startup founders sharing learnings and insights each Wednesday on X

• GSAP mouse mask — slick spotlight effect powered by GSAP

• Tailwind Grid Generator — create custom Tailwind grid layouts more easily

That’s a wrap for this week!

As always, if you have something you wish to contribute to Astro Weekly, please feel free to drop me an email at [email protected] or via DM on X.

Have a great week, Astronauts!

– Nathan 🧑‍🚀