The true potential of Next.js Layouts (+ my next.js course 👀)

Hey Reader,

I have some exciting news 🥳.

I have been working hard on launching the Modern Full Stack Next.js Course ↗️.

It's a course that teaches you to build and deploy modern full stack Next.js Production-ready apps.

It is coming along well and I am taking the extra time to perfect it. It’s set to launch in April, and I can’t wait for y’all to check it out!

I plan to share extra bonuses 🎁 and nuggets for folks on the waitlist so click this magic link to join the waitlist ↗️.

Weekly Snack: The Secret Magic of Layouts 🍿

Despite working on Next.js for the past few years, I still made a mistake of realizing the true potential of Layouts.

What are Layouts?

In Next.js, a Layout is a file that lets you wrap a group of pages.

If you think Layouts are just for common styling and shared elements, think again—they do so much more.

Take my Next.js Course Platform, for example.

The Challenge

When a student clicks a lesson in the curriculum side nav, we don’t want the entire curriculum to reload with the new page. If there are 100 lessons in the side nav, why reload them every time? That data isn’t changing.

The Solution

This is where Layouts come in! By creating a child layout, I can keep the curriculum side nav from reloading unnecessarily and move the data fetching to Layouts as well.

Notice the data fetching being moved to Layouts which means lessons will be fetched only once on page load 🏆.

Here’s how:

Moving on to our weekly news,

🚀 Latest Frontend News

A Library with beautiful React Components

Next.js just published a detailed guide on Building API's with Next.js

Next.js 15.2 is out and even though this may seem like a minor version, it isn't!

💅 The Error UI is fully designed and revamped - looks slick
❎ Async metadata will no longer block page rendering
⚡ Faster compile times thanks to Turbopack
🤯 Experimental support for React's new View Transitions API

I already upgraded my Next.js Course Platform to 15.2 and it is very fast and way better!

Claude 3.7 is now available on Trae! - A competitor of Cursor AI and an IDE as well

TanStack Solid Router is now Available 🎉 More info here

TanStack Form 0.43 is out now! with Stricter types

You can now Self-Host Convex and is fully Open Source and they have a detailed onboarding tutorial as well

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Create React App is Dead, Here's a New Way to Build React Apps

Interviewed Lee Rob, VP of Product at Vercel

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Ankita Kulkarni