2022 Contentful year in review

Happy New Year friends!

Now that 2022 has come to a close, we’re spending this month’s newsletter reflecting on all the fun we had this past year. From launching the Developer Showcase to introducing new features updates and participating in tons of events, there is a lot to cover.

Ready to rewind and reminisce?

2022 by the numbers

All through the past year, we kept busy ‌building new features, expanding our tutorial library, and launching other resources to streamline and jumpstart your development of Contentful. 

Here’s a look at what we accomplished in numbers: 

• 28 new feature releases and updates across the web app, APIs, and App Framework

• 50 technical blogs posted on topics ranging from TypeScript to Next.js

• 7,900+ custom apps created with the App Framework

• 56 entries published to the Developer Showcase

• 7 starter guides created for popular technologies such as Gatsby, Remix, and more.

Community projects powered by Contentful

Let’s give a huge round of applause to all the projects built by our community in 2022. You created so many apps, tutorials, and videos highlighting how to solve problems with Contentful, and we've been delighted by all of them. Below are some of my favorite builds. 

Round the World: Interactive Map Diary 

Contentful devrel Alvin Bryan created “Round the World,” an interactive map diary using Svelte Kit and MapLibre GL. As you scroll through the entries of a travelogue from October 1878 to January 1879, the map updates its location. Impressive!

Gatsby Bricks 

Web developer Dan Polant put Gatsby and Contentful together to create a website showcasing LEGO projects made by himself and his family. Gatsby Bricks is a real labor of love, and in this blog post he explains how he did it.

Conditional Fields App 

Front-end developer Alexandra Haynes built an app that implements conditional fields within the Entry Editor for content models. Check out the demo on her GitHub page.

Building Rise of the Robots with Gatsby and Contentful

Software engineer Paul Scanlon built a beautiful Gatsby and Rive-powered demo for animations to showcase creative Jamstack uses. The demo site is here, while he explains the process behind it in this blog post.

Visit the Contentful Developer Showcase for more exciting builds. You're also more than welcome to submit your own!

Contentful tutorials and resources

Last year we focused on creating content to help developers quickly get started with Contentful — here are some examples.

Livestreams

In 2022 we re-launched livestreams (like this intro to Svelte by Developer Advocates Harshil and Alvin). We experimented with other video content too (like this interview  on Engineering team operations featuring two Contentful Directors of Engineering).

Starter templates

We created a ton of new starter templates. Most notable? Without a doubt our Next.js blog starter guide (complete with a dinosaur-themed video walkthrough), Remix portfolio website tutorial, and Gatsby starter guide. 

(Psst! There’re also guides for React, Hydrogen, JavaScript, and Sveltekit. View our Getting Started page to browse all of the new templates and starters.)

Our favorite events

We loved meeting so many of you at in-person tech events. Between leading a music-themed workshop at Render ATL, staking out booths at JS Nation and React Summit, and co-sponsoring Jamstack Conf with Stackbit, it’s difficult to pick a favorite. 

London Meetup

One event stood above the rest, however: our Contentful Meetup in London! Our devrel team left feeling inspired, having met and exchanged ideas with so many local developers in-person. Steve Ruiz, discussed designing arrows, Obinna Ekwuno addressed Jamstack, and Vercel gave a lightning talk on Next.js updates. 

Fast Forward 2022

Finally, Contentful put on Fast Forward Live, a virtual livestream where we addressed the future of digital content and announced exciting updates. We followed this event with a four-city roadshow to Berlin, New York, London, and San Francisco (trust us, you’ll want to check out the recaps).

In 2023, you can definitely look forward to seeing us at tech conferences, local meetups, and at online events. Keep an eye on our developer events page for updates!

A year of feature releases

Here are highlights from some of our major releases the past year. 

Design systems and APIs

In January we released v4 of Forma 36, our open-source design system, with added accessibility improvements, speed and usability. And in the spring we announced TypeScript support in v10 of contentful.js, our JavaScript library for the Content Delivery API.

Editorial interface

We also made some highly-anticipated upgrades to the rich text editor, which allows tables to be created and superscript and subscript to be added across content. 

Contentful Marketplace and App Framework

We introduced a few new faces to the Contentful Marketplace, including a Slack app for notifications, an update to our Netlify app, and a brand new Merge app to facilitate melding updated content types.

The App Framework also experienced some positive changes. We added custom space home pages, app actions, and the ability to use apps across spaces and environments. 

Check out our Changelog to see the full list of updates and new features. 

Enjoy the rest of the month!

That’s it for this month! Visit the Contentful Developer Portal for even more news.

The portal also houses developer blog posts, videos and tutorials.

As always, feel free to contact us on Slack or Twitter to let us know how we can better support your awesome builds.

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