TypeScript evolves quickly. The TypeScript team publishes a new release every month. Some releases bring new features; others include bug fixes. Keeping up with updates can be challenging since it is easy to miss announcements on their blog. In this post, I will show you how to receive a notification as soon as a new TypeScript release is available.
The idea is to use Microsoft Flow to send you an email, a push notification, a JIRA task, a Trello card, or whatever you prefer. Microsoft Flow lets you automatically trigger actions when something happens. In our case, we'll send an email when a new item is published in an RSS feed. The free version of Microsoft Flow includes 750 runs per month, unlimited flow creation, and 15-minute checks, which is more than enough for our needs.
#Creating the flow
Open Microsoft Flow: https://emea.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/
Click "My Flows" in the header
Click "Create from blank"
Set the url: https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/releases.atom
Click "+ New step" and "Add an action"
Search for "Email notifications"
Configure the action with the value from the RSS item
Save the flow and wait for the next TypeScript release
#Result
#Conclusion
Microsoft Flow and its competitors such as Zapier and IFTTT are very valuable tools. They let you add useful features in minutes that the original service does not provide. For instance, in this post, we added email notifications for new GitHub releases. This is possible because GitHub supports standard features like RSS feeds.
As a developer, you cannot implement everything your users want. Even if you could, the interface would quickly become overwhelming. Instead, you can focus on standard, easy-to-add features. For instance, adding an RSS feed takes little time but enables hundreds of scenarios through tools like Microsoft Flow or Zapier. Look at the available actions and triggers to find what you can add to your application to support new scenarios for free for your users.
Do you have a question or a suggestion about this post? Contact me!
