Return to Tether
As Robbie wrote about in a previous post, we moved back to the original element attachment and positioning library Shepherd.js shipped with. This was with the intent of not only controlling the overal bundle size (which I’ll discuss next), but also about being able to control those dependencies over time. Since Ship Shape is now maintaining the Tether code base, we have a chance to ensure that it stays lean and performant for it’s users, which are also ourselves for the future of Shepherd.
Smaller Size
Getting back to the point on overall size. For implementers of Shepherd, we find
it important to make sure we’re able to ship a library that adds only what is
needed for the Tour API and allow engineers to create rich experiences with
little impact to their application’s performance. We think we’ve done quite a
bit by reducing the overall bundle size down to ~15kb (min + gzip) and
removing all dependencies other than Tether.
Website Update
As we continued to iterate, on improving the library, we decided to work with the team at make&model to create branding to help Shepherd be more memorable and unique. This now combines the demo site and branding to help show the many benefits of the library and highlight companies already using it. It also helps to show the seemingly limitless level of customization that can be achieved with Shepherd tours.
We hope this latest release provides a speedy, low impact, and easy to use way to bring application tours to your users! Feedback is appreciated, as always.