StackBlitz April 2022 Update

What a month! Not only did we secure seed funding, fixed numerous bugs but also met each other in person at a StackBlitz team offsite! Well-rested and slightly-tanned, we are bringing you:

Before we begin, a quick announcement: we are one of the sponsors of the upcoming Write The Docs conference where we will showcase a new doc editing workflow tool. Come say hi! We have swag to share!

StackBlitz in the wild

DX & compatibility improvements

As we’re working on new tools (stay tuned 🔥), we are finishing the month with a whole plethora of improvements:

  • WebContainers:
    • WebContainers are now enabled for Chrome mobile.
  • SDK:
    • We’ve released version 1.7.0 of @stackblitz/sdk, with improved TypeScript support and new features for controlling the UI of embedded StackBlitz projects.
    • The SDK can now be used to change the editor’s color scheme at runtime (e.g. to react to a change of color theme in the parent page), open or close editor tabs, reveal or close the sidebar, etc.
    • For a demonstration of what is now possible, check out the playground on the Contentlayer homepage. Thanks to Johannes Schickling for helping push the bondaries of what our SDK can do!
  • Updates to starter projects:
    • In the “Popular” starters section, we’ve replaced Nuxt 2 with Nuxt 3, now that Nuxt 3 has reached the “Release Candidate” stage. If you’d like to start a Nuxt 2 project instead, you can find it in the “Fullstack” section.
  • Project sharing:
    • When a project has several users with access (as co-owner, editor or viewer), the Share button icon now changes to indicate that. This is only visible to the project owner and to users with access.
    • Guests can now update the visibility of a project that they created, choosing between “Public” and “Secret”.
  • Bug fixes and improvements:
    • When using our GitHub repository integration: fix a bug that could create unnecessary empty commits with default names.
    • When a page is in view=preview mode, opening the sidebar no longer triggers hiding the preview or editor.
    • In the Terminal, running the command open path/to/file will now reveal the corresponding file in the file explorer even if that file resides in a hidden folder.
    • We removed some UI elements in the Search sidebar that were inactive. Turns out we had implemented some UI buttons and inputs but not the underlying capabilities! In particular, we removed the project-wide “Replace” input, which wasn’t working. Our apologies for all the frustration that might have arisen from trying to use broken UI elements. 🥺
    • Fixed an issue where npm install was not executed when the user had a ~/.jshrc file created in the virtual filesystem and shared between projects.
    • Fixed a bug that was preventing opening the sidebar in embeds on small screens.
    • Using the Web Serial API inside the preview frame is now enabled.
    • We’ve added some more explicit error messages when we fail to import a GitHub repository.
  • Documentation:

So Happy Together!

Is there a more joyful way to celebrate spring and securing seed funding than a team-wide offsite on the Balearic Islands? As a team distributed across 13 countries, we don’t get many chances to hang out together. It was a truly magical time flavored with a weird feeling of meeting for the first time someone you know quite well!

Part of the StackBlitz Team{class=cover}

Beyond the working sessions, we also did a bit snorkeling, hiking, and pampered ourselves with amazing food. Although not everyone could participate in person, we made sure that everyone felt included and present. Until the next time!

Quick bites for the road

What’s next?

We are so excited for what the nearest future will bring - we are cooking something really special for you! In the meantime, stay tuned on Twitter or join our Discord community.

Sylwia Vargas
DevRel & front-end at Stackblitz. Tech writer and educator advocating for accessible and equitable tech.
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