Next.js 14 is around the corner and with it comes a slew of new improvements and features that aim to enhance both the developer experience and the end user interaction. In this article, we’ll dive into some of these updates and explain how they can benefit your Next.js projects.
Turbopack – Boost Your Local Development Performance
Starting off with a major improvement, Turbopack promises to significantly increase the speed of local development in Next.js. The advancements in Turbopack show a 53.3% and a 94.7% speed increase in ‘next dev’ tests while using the turbo and stable configurations respectively. This improvement is expected to be a game-changer for developers who value speed and efficiency.
Server Actions – Enhancing Data Mutations
Next.js 14 also brings attention to the simplification of data mutations. The latest version introduces Server Actions which allows running functions securely on the server, directly from your React components. This eliminates the need to manually create an API Route and provides a better experience for those with slower network connections or lower-powered devices.
export default function Page () {
async function create(formData: FormData) {
'use server';
const id = await createItem(formData);
}
return (
<form action={create}>
<input type="text" name="name"/>
<button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>
);
}
This feature aims to boost the progressive enhancement provided by Next.js, allowing developers to focus more on designing components and less on implementation details.
Partial Prerendering – Optimizing Static Response
Next.js is also working on introducing Partial Prerendering, a compiler optimization for dynamic content that enables faster static responses. This feature, built upon the foundations of server-side rendering (SSR), static-site generation (SSG), and incremental static revalidation (ISR), avoids introducing new APIs for developers and relies on Suspense boundaries.
Partial Prerendering will help to serve the static HTML shell immediately thus significantly improving load times. This is an optional feature that will be introduced in an upcoming minor release.
Decoupling Metadata – Boosting Performance
In addition to the above features, Next.js 14 also brings an update to how metadata is handled. This release has successfully decoupled blocking and non-blocking metadata to ensure that non-blocking metadata will not delay a partially prerendered page from serving the static shell.
metadata
viewport
colorScheme
themeColor
viewport
generateViewport
metadata
This feature will allow pages to load faster on slow networks and significantly improve the browsing experience for users.
Wrapping Up
These improvements and features along with optimized fonts and images, layout and page creation, and advanced navigation systems make Next.js 14 an exciting update. By simplifying the developer experience and boosting performance, this new version stands to make building in Next.js even more enjoyable and efficient.
Remember to keep an eye out for these updates and take advantage of the new features to spruce up your Next.js projects!
*Tags:* #Nextjs14, #Turbopack, #ServerActions, #PartialPrerendering, #DecouplingMetadata
