What statuses are and what they mean?
Work on any new component in the Forma 36 library is a process during which the team exercises the API of the component and test it for many different use-cases. Because of that, Forma 36 might have a different status during this process, which might be important for end users who would decide to use a given component in their project. Take a look on the overview:
| Status | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Alpha | This component is subject to major changes and is for experimentation purposes only. Not recommended for use in production software. |
| Beta | This component is ready to use but may have some bugs. Use in production software with caution. |
| Stable | This component is ready to use and will not be subject to any major changes. Recommended for use in production software. |
| Deprecated | This component has been deprecated and is not supported or recommended for use. |
How to use components in beta version?
Forma 36 as many open source libraries really benefit from the feedback given by early adopters. We encourage our users to try out components as soon as possible, but the recommendation is always beta and stable - this is when the component is already tested and we know that most of the major issues are already fixed.
As an example we can use the new Datepicker component. If you would like to try it out in your codebase in a beta stage you can simply:
npm add @contentful/f36-datepicker@beta
or
yarn add @contentful/f36-datepicker@beta
As soon as the component is released in a stable version, we announce it as a changelog entry and let you know in the community slack channel. You can then update your project to use stable version instead of beta.