Bye-bye Weeds! Digital Gardening with Astro & MDX.

A presentation at React Alicante 2023 in September 2023 in Alicante, Spain by Kathleen McMahon

Bye-bye Weeds! Digital gardening with Astro and MDX — Kathleen McMahon — React Alicante
● Welcome everyone! I’m Kathleen McMahon and I’m here today to talk about Bye-bye Weeds! Digital Gardening with Astro and MDX.
● Before we begin, let’s get some details out of the way.

Gracias a todos. — React Alicante
First, I want to give a huge thank you to Victoria and Nacho, the speakers, the event production crew, the volunteers, and everyone who worked so hard to create an excellent event!

https://noti.st/resource11
My presentation will be posted on Notist, that’s https://noti.st/resource11, after my talk. I’ll also post the full URL on Twitter sometime after my presentation

@resource11 Twitter | Instagram | GitHub
● You can follow me at. Resource11 on Twitter, GitHub, and Instagram.
● Let’s back up so I can introduce myself a bit better…

Kathleen McMahon | Engineer • Designer • Speaker
So I’m an engineer and a designer and I like to speak about things…

Cyclocross! [image] various pictures of me racing cyclocross
I’m an occasional cyclocross racer,

image: Me on a cyclocross bike, in Spam, Ninja Turtle, Nerds candy box, Medusa costumes
In costume of course.

image: a wide-screen view of the colorful lamps and lighting strips adorning my home office desk and bookcases
Lover of lights

image: A wide-planked boardwalk — with soft sand and sea grass surrounding its weathered wooden railing — leads toward the calm ocean during a cloudy afternoon low tide
Beach goer.

image: A montage of sand dollars of various sizes and colors, next to a tiny and medium sand dollar in the palm of my hand.
Sand dollar collector

image: Thor, resting on the windowsill of my kitchen window, enjoying the warm summer breeze and sunshine on his soft beige fur and dreamy blue eyes.
Lover of my cats Thor

image: Otis — my silky black haus panther — nestled between my purple bed pillows, gazing at me with calm golden eyes.
…and Otis.

image: A gathering of green aventurine, sodalite, rose quarts towers, and quarts diamond on the kitchen table
I’m a Crystal collector

image: Otis, the black wonder cat, steps into the frame of my crystal collection
And I photograph them, but Otis…

image: Otis' paws walk through my crystal arrangement on the kitchen table
…interferes often

image: grouping of citrine, amethyst, and celestite glowing in the sun-washed windowsill
…with opinions…

image: Otis — sassy black cat — sits exactly on top of all my windowsill crystals, seeking attention.
…about my attention. Thanks, Otis

image: In pure art director fashion, Thor sits distinctly on one windowsill sand dollar. Ready to provide his ultimate design judgement.
Thor does the same…

image: Thor looks up from the windowsill to the camera with a very satisfied look. His blue eyes gaze hypnotically my way as his pink nose points upward, whiskers pridefully twitching.
He’s very satisfied with himself.

image: Otis looking very cute as he lays upside down on my bed, gazing at me.
Who could resist them?

Northwestern Mutual
I am also a senior Design Systems engineer at Northwestern Mutual.

Design Systems are ALWAYS the hotness [image]: Person in inflatable dinosaur costume flips into a raft floating on a pond and claps with glee.
And I love Design Systems! it’s exciting work! Especially if you like…

image: Woman attempting to arrange 10 squirming kittens in a straight line, with varied success
…herding kittens. Always fun, with many moving parts. Part of Design System work includes trying out different software stacks and choosing the best tool for your system, like Gatsby.

Image: Gatsby and MDX logo

Image: KathleenMcMahon.dev homepage
kathleenmcmahon.dev back in 2020…

A digital what?
So… what is a digital garden?

What is a digital garden? [image]: Small potted plant next to a rake with caption, My blog is a digital garden, not a blog
this blog post by Joel Hooks, and this phrase makes sense to me: “What makes a garden is interesting. It’s personal. Things are organized and orderly, but with a touch of chaos around the edges.”

Image: Gatsby and MDX logo

image: ALL THE THINGS Hyperbole and a Half
All the things! All the latest software, but at the same time…

Perfection is the enemy of done
I struggle with making progress over seeking perfection, and if I’m not careful, lean towards making…

image: A Lexus with a big red bow juxtaposed next to a tiny floofy beige kitten with a red bow
● “Big Lexus bows” vs. “Tiny kitten bows”. Wow can I hyper-focus on the details, make that perfectly crafted piece of software before shipping. That’s heck on velocity, though.
● The digital garden format keeps me in the kitten bow mindset. This way, progress happens, and blog posts get written. New things get shipped.

There be weeds [image]: Two fluffy dandelion weeds in a green field
● Fast forward a few years and… a few talk listing and package updates later… I noticed that my Digital Garden got… weedy. And Gatsby had versioned up to 5.3, while my site was on 2.3
● I considering an upgrade and asked an industry colleague familiar with Gatsby how painful this upgrade would be. Of course I already knew the answer. 3 major versions. Ouch. But! After asking, and hearing the expected — yes it’ll be a pain — the advice leaned towards the obvious.
● “If it’s using JavaScript, it requires regular maintenance” (OK…) which turned into a suggestion to use Squarespace, since it didn’t require maintenance.
[image]: UnSplash — masaaki-komori—0M1TKzvr3Y-unsplash

JavaScript is hard
And that kinda sounded like JavaScript’s hard… and maybe you’re out of your league…

JavaScript is hard …maybe you should build a Squarespace site?
“…maybe you should create a Squarespace site?”

image: Judy Hopps from Zootopia, shakes her head in disgust
Did you just say something was hard? Hello… spite driven development. By golly I would upgrade this app three versions up. Squarespace my butt.

image: Shrimp and lime jello mold, plated with apple slices
● Ten hours later, after a Netflix binge and upgrade session…I come up for air. I’ve fixed all the new GraphQL changes and was wrestling with the Gatsby image API, and now I’m questioning life choices…
● I was Just like combining jello with shellfish deciding to go all in was not a great decision.

"if you want a static site, why are you using a whole JavaScript framework to render it?"
I thought “I have a four-page static site. Why am I using a JavaScript framework to render four static pages in a blog, and…

Why use JSX to create HTML when you could just… use HTML?
● why am I using JSX to create HTML when I could just use HTML?”
● Granted, I work on Design Systems. I love creating component APIs, and love using React, so I’m the last person to say just throw it all out, but there are times where you need a four-page site without throwing all this JavaScript at it just to render something that’s small, lean, performant, and just doesn’t need to be a SPA, it needs to be a multi-page app.

I don't need a suite of combine machines. [image]: Large agricultural harvesting machines in a vast golden field
And the Gatsby of 2020 isn’t the same as it is today. That hot static site generator everyone wanted to use has evolved into this suite of industrial farming equipment.
[image] UnSplash — darla-hueske-SD18qQeXEg8

A hoe and rake will do. [image] Small rake, pronged fork and clippers in a modest garden
I don’t need a combine machine when a hoe and rake will do for my needs.
[image] UnSplash — diana-light-342WASC0aSQ

Weed out the Complexity [image]: Gloved hand digging weeds out of a garden
● It was time to weed out the complexity, and choose a new framework
● One that will compile right down to HTML CSS and only serve the minimal amount of JavaScript if I need it.
[image] UnSplash — ales-krivec-6UtxyuTdpQU

image: Astro.build homepage
So I looked around — and because there’s a bunch out there and… oh hai Astro… let’s take a look at you.

Why Astro?
● Why did I choose Astro?
● SolidJS Support
● I can try out different UI frameworks in Astro without going all-in
● I can bring in components from my other app and convert them one at a time without have to completely convert every component over at a time (some here are React, some are Solid, I’m using pragmas)
● Content-focused - fetch from a CMS or work locally with type-safe Markdown or MDX (which is the reason I want it)
● Content collections
● Type safety

Why Astro? [image] Astro documentation page
● Why did I choose Astro?
● Astro was designed for building content-rich websites. And I zeroed in on blogs, portfolios… I don’t need a logged-in dashboard, or complex native app interactions that NextJS would give me, so this seems like a safe bet.

MDX support
MDX support. I can add my MDX pages and move on.

PostCSS support
It supports PostCSS by default, so my current CSS setup will port over without much fuss.

Astro Islands
Astro Islands. These are interactive UI components on the page that render in isolation using partial/selective hydration

Convert some components or all components
So I can import my React components from my Gatsby project. I can choose to convert them to Astro components over time, or leave them as React components.

I can try out different UI frameworks in Astro
● I can try out different frameworks, like SolidJS, Vue without having to fully commit to a framework.
● And share state between them.

MPA Architecture
That’s pretty cool. Astro also uses MPA and server-side rendering vs a client-side Single-page app, so it’s performant.

Leaner configs
And the configs are much leaner. Check this out.

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😀 astro.config.mjs 😀
Here the Gatsby’s config on the left versus Astros config on the right

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-node.js 🫣 astro.config.mjs 😀
Here’s the Gatsby.node file for creating nodes because I didn’t want to have my blog posts under the source folder, so I could be really fancy and smart.

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-browser.js 🙃 astro.config.mjs 😀
And a Gatsby browser file with this WrapRoot element so I could wrap styled components and pass them into MDX all at once for usage

Till the soil [image] Person digging with a spade into the soil
Once I ported my components over to an Astro project there were some differences
[image] UnSplash — jonathan-kemper-f6RoUmj4iiM

image: side-by-side comparison — layout.js Layout.astro

Add mulch [image]: Hands holding soil
Now that the layout is set, time to mulch some content.
[image] UnSplash —gabriel-jimenez-jin4W1HqgL

From GraphQL to Content Collections
● First, ditch those GraphQL queries, and add in Astro’s Content Collections
● Content collections are the best way to manage and author content in any Astro project. Collections help to organize your documents, validate your frontmatter, and provide automatic TypeScript type-safety for all of your content.

image: GraphQL indexQuery
In Gatsby, I had this one query to grab images from a local folder. Literally 6 images.

image: GraphQL aboutQuery
This other one to grab images for my about page

image: GraphQL writeQuery
Queries for my write page, and a query for my MDX posts to parse all the data into readable format. That’s a lot for a small site.

image: Astro config.ts
● In comparison, Astro’s Content Collections Added in: astro@2.0.0 is much simpler.
● It allows you to organize your documents, validate frontmatter, and provide content schema type-safety.

Dynamically generating routes
Along with content collections, you can dynamically generate routes…

image: […slug].astro file
● By creating this […slug].astro file and use the getCollection function from `astro:content` and getStaticPaths functions to parse your data and pop it in your pages/posts folder.
● The getCollection function will grab your blog data, combined with the getStaticPaths function will map data for each of your posts.
● No more finagling post files. no more Gatsby CreatePage nonsense.

Type-safe MDX with Zod.
The other great thing about content collections is Type safety in your MDX with Zod

Zod TypeScript-first schema validation with static type inference
The official definition is: TypeScript-first schema validation with static type inference. What that means is: Zod uses TS to create schemas to help you validate your data.

Plant new starters [image] hand planting starters in soil
Now that your content is defined and validated, time to plant new starters. We need to pull in some Images.

image:assets
New Image assets was released as stable in Astro 3.0 replaces the original @astrojs/image integration

image: <Image /> example file
This API the allows you to import any any image from the src/assets folder, and if when you pop it in the source and add the required alt attribute… yay a11y!…

image: <img /> example file
Astro generates this optimized images with the following attributes in the DOM for you

Stubborn Link Icon conversions
Oh boy… icons. This was fun… And time-consuming

From Gatsby-links to Astro links
First there was the whole Gatsby link conundrum

image: side-by-side comparison — Link.jsx Link.astro
● I had a Link component, and wanted to leverage React Font Awesome for the a11y svg icon benefits, and got stuck for a week
● No matter what, Icon would break, couldn’t integrate the component
● Ended up refactoring to Link astro component and using astro-iconify and customizing icon svg imports, optimizing for a11y

What I’ve learned
To wrap up… here’s what I’ve learned from converting my site to Astro

Big Lexus bows vs. Tiny kitten bows
Naturally there was tension between Big Lexus bows and kitten bows as I migrated my site to Astro

Schemas are tricky. So are dynamic imports… with images.

CSS load order is no joke.
● _[…slug].css files load first because
● Markdown layout files load first because
● Base.css files load because
● We’re so clever with our main.css file yo and
● Now we’re overwriting something in our base styles
● Because we’re every-layout clever
https://every-layout.dev/layouts/stack/
● Also, astro files don’t like CSS modules

Clean up file cruft, or your Netlify deploys will fail
Netlify will pick up any stray YAML files during your build and if they don’t follow your schema… uh oh

ViewTransitions are Tricky …and buggy
Demo ViewTransition

Everything Everywhere at Once
Everything Everywhere at once… whew it was a challenge.

What components are still port over (yet)

Custom MDX components
Custom MDX components… in particular…

custom CodeBlock with react-live/ DisplayBox
react-live doesn’t play well with custom components… yet

Thank you Astro team @Bryceguy @Sarah @Elian @Sarah11918 @Erika @Tony-Sull @Kevin @Yan @Otterlord
I want to give a huge shout out to a few people of the Astro core team and community that worked with me through my site conversion. Thank you, you are amazing!

Kathleen McMahon
@resource11

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Has your once-thriving digital garden become overgrown with weeds? Has your framework of choice changed from a suite of landscaping tools to a warehouse of industrial farming equipment? What if you’re three versions behind? Do you upgrade and continue with complexity, or choose a new stack that meets your static site needs?

This talk will teach you to weed out site complexity with Astro, SolidJS, and MDX. Pair this with accessibility best practices, and breathe new life into your digital garden.

Resources

The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.

Buzz and feedback

Here’s what was said about this presentation on social media.

Has your once-thriving digital garden become overgrown with weeds? Has your framework of choice changed from a suite of landscaping tools to a warehouse of industrial farming equipment? What if you're three versions behind? @resource11 will answer to all this and much more! 🙌😀
— ReactAlicante ⚛️🌞🥘 (@ReactAlicante) April 18, 2023
A quick trip through Madrid.., and now… @ReactAlicante! pic.twitter.com/bepHwsD82B
— Kathleen McMahon @ ReactAlicante 🇪🇸 (@resource11) September 29, 2023
Desde swag dulce hasta vista increíble, @ReactAlicante es mágico.

From sweet swag to incredible views. React Alicante is magic. pic.twitter.com/1QyQnS7iz1
— Kathleen McMahon @ ReactAlicante 🇪🇸 (@resource11) September 29, 2023
Cada vez que @debs_obrien presenta una charla sobre @playwrightweb, cada asiento ocupado. @ReactAlicante lo demuestra.

Every time Deb O’Brien gives a talk on Playwright, it’s a full house. React Alicante proves this. pic.twitter.com/Y4vUY1N1KE
— Kathleen McMahon @ ReactAlicante 🇪🇸 (@resource11) September 29, 2023
Es un día maravilloso para un charla @ReactAlicante, y la vista del Mediterráneo está tan bonito.

It’s a marvelous day for a talk at React Alicante, and the Mediterranean views are so pretty. pic.twitter.com/cHa0UXqMRg
— Kathleen McMahon @ ReactAlicante 🇪🇸 (@resource11) September 30, 2023
@resource11 talk about upgrading a blog theree major versions feels so personal.

I am glad for @astrodotbuild making breaking changes almost painless. Went from v1 to v3 without many tears. pic.twitter.com/VqjCY2nsSE
— Neciu Dan (@neciudan) September 30, 2023
@resource11 @ReactAlicante #reactalicante pic.twitter.com/Uvtzvp5Gf0
— Panayiotis Georgiou 🇪🇸 React Alicante (@panay_georgiou) September 30, 2023
@resource11 @ReactAlicante #reactalicante pic.twitter.com/1FGhk05iPz
— Panayiotis Georgiou 🇪🇸 React Alicante (@panay_georgiou) September 30, 2023
This! by @resource11 at @ReactAlicante pic.twitter.com/TF7LgGLTWP
— Dan Tamas (@dan_tamas) September 30, 2023
Love to see @resource11 showing some @astrodotbuild love at @ReactAlicante pic.twitter.com/ABTwJ3j7Sq
— Daniel Afonso (@danieljcafonso) September 30, 2023
Nice talk by @resource11 about how she updated her digital garden using @astrodotbuild @ReactAlicante pic.twitter.com/5zv6L8wMg3
— Facundo Giuliani (@facundozurdo) September 30, 2023
The only rhink I’d like to say after the @resource11 speech at @ReactAlicante is - thank you to get my mind in the right order 💜

The speech was awesome and you rock! #react #reactalicante pic.twitter.com/JZgVVpfxJo
— Sabina Psuj (@SabinaPsuj) September 30, 2023
Nothing is better post @ReactAlicante celebration than getting a shoutout by a speaker who you admire.

Thanks, @facundozurdo! https://t.co/efKsfPPIL1
— Kathleen McMahon @ ReactAlicante 🇪🇸 (@resource11) September 30, 2023
Día 2 y la audiencia está llena para las Charlas Relámpago en @ReactAlicante

Day 2 and the audience is full for the Lightning Talks at React Alicante pic.twitter.com/TFnUcxCgAi
— Kathleen McMahon @ ReactAlicante 🇪🇸 (@resource11) September 30, 2023
Offscreen: Kathleen seeks her backpack. Missing yet another speaker group photo. 🤣
— Kathleen McMahon @ ReactAlicante 🇪🇸 (@resource11) October 2, 2023
.@erikras presente no sólo habla de SolidJS, vive la Reactividad!

Erik doesn’t just talk about SolidJD, he lives Reactivity!@ReactAlicante pic.twitter.com/3Tib9iQL6T
— Kathleen McMahon @ ReactAlicante 🇪🇸 (@resource11) October 2, 2023
Summary 🇪🇸Part 3/4:
We were treated to amazing speakers like Kathleen McMahon @resource11, Kevin Maes @kvmaes, @TejasKumar_, and Shivay Lamba @HowDevelop. Women debutants Adina Stoica @adinutzyc21 & Joana Santos @joanamcsa were fantastic! 👏#ReactAlicante pic.twitter.com/Izwh3ikN36
— Hatimeria (@hatimeria) October 2, 2023
Mientras ordeno mis pensamientos sobre @ReactAlicante, ¡es hora de viajar de regreso a Madrid!

As I gather my thoughts anout React Alicante, it’s time to travel back to Madrid! pic.twitter.com/F0yvl1nmbd
— Kathleen McMahon @ ReactAlicante 🇪🇸 (@resource11) October 3, 2023

Bye-bye Weeds! Digital gardening with Astro and MDX — Kathleen McMahon — React Alicante

Gracias a todos. — React Alicante

https://noti.st/resource11

@resource11 Twitter | Instagram | GitHub

Kathleen McMahon | Engineer • Designer • Speaker

Cyclocross! [image] various pictures of me racing cyclocross

image: Me on a cyclocross bike, in Spam, Ninja Turtle, Nerds candy box, Medusa costumes

image: a wide-screen view of the colorful lamps and lighting strips adorning my home office desk and bookcases

image: A wide-planked boardwalk — with soft sand and sea grass surrounding its weathered wooden railing — leads toward the calm ocean during a cloudy afternoon low tide

image: A montage of sand dollars of various sizes and colors, next to a tiny and medium sand dollar in the palm of my hand.

image: Thor, resting on the windowsill of my kitchen window, enjoying the warm summer breeze and sunshine on his soft beige fur and dreamy blue eyes.

image: Otis — my silky black haus panther — nestled between my purple bed pillows, gazing at me with calm golden eyes.

image: A gathering of green aventurine, sodalite, rose quarts towers, and quarts diamond on the kitchen table

image: Otis, the black wonder cat, steps into the frame of my crystal collection

image: Otis' paws walk through my crystal arrangement on the kitchen table

image: grouping of citrine, amethyst, and celestite glowing in the sun-washed windowsill

image: Otis — sassy black cat — sits exactly on top of all my windowsill crystals, seeking attention.

image: In pure art director fashion, Thor sits distinctly on one windowsill sand dollar. Ready to provide his ultimate design judgement.

image: Thor looks up from the windowsill to the camera with a very satisfied look. His blue eyes gaze hypnotically my way as his pink nose points upward, whiskers pridefully twitching.

image: Otis looking very cute as he lays upside down on my bed, gazing at me.

Northwestern Mutual

Design Systems are ALWAYS the hotness [image]: Person in inflatable dinosaur costume flips into a raft floating on a pond and claps with glee.

image: Woman attempting to arrange 10 squirming kittens in a straight line, with varied success

Image: Gatsby and MDX logo

Image: KathleenMcMahon.dev homepage

A digital what?

What is a digital garden? [image]: Small potted plant next to a rake with caption, My blog is a digital garden, not a blog

Image: Gatsby and MDX logo

image: ALL THE THINGS Hyperbole and a Half

Perfection is the enemy of done

image: A Lexus with a big red bow juxtaposed next to a tiny floofy beige kitten with a red bow

There be weeds [image]: Two fluffy dandelion weeds in a green field

JavaScript is hard

JavaScript is hard …maybe you should build a Squarespace site?

image: Judy Hopps from Zootopia, shakes her head in disgust

10 hours later…

image: Judy Hopps from Zootopia, shakes her head in disgust

image: Shrimp and lime jello mold, plated with apple slices

"if you want a static site, why are you using a whole JavaScript framework to render it?"

Why use JSX to create HTML when you could just… use HTML?

I don't need a suite of combine machines. [image]: Large agricultural harvesting machines in a vast golden field

A hoe and rake will do. [image] Small rake, pronged fork and clippers in a modest garden

Weed out the Complexity [image]: Gloved hand digging weeds out of a garden

image: Astro.build homepage

Why Astro?

Why Astro? [image] Astro documentation page

MDX support

PostCSS support

Astro Islands

Convert some components or all components

I can try out different UI frameworks in Astro

MPA Architecture

Leaner configs

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😀 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😀 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😀 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😶 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 🤔 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😐 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😑 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😐 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 🫤 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😬 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-config.js 😳 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-node.js 🫣 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-node.js 🙄 astro.config.mjs 😀

image: side-by-side comparison — gatsby-browser.js 🙃 astro.config.mjs 😀

Till the soil [image] Person digging with a spade into the soil

From React children to Astro slots

image: side-by-side comparison — layout.js Layout.astro

image: side-by-side comparison — layout.js Layout.astro

image: side-by-side comparison — layout.js Layout.astro

image: side-by-side comparison — layout.js Layout.astro

Add mulch [image]: Hands holding soil

From GraphQL to Content Collections

image: GraphQL indexQuery

image: GraphQL aboutQuery

image: GraphQL writeQuery

image: Astro config.ts

Dynamically generating routes