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Getting to Grips with the Airtable API
14.2.2019
The Airtable web app is pretty neat. You can use it like a spreadsheet but it’s useful for all sorts of other things too. The neatest thing about it for me is that it has an API so that you can treat it like a database.
I’ve been thinking about making weekly notes for the different teams I work...
“the closest thing web standards have to a golden rule”
14.2.2019
The internet's own Mat Marquis plucks this choice quote from the HTML Design Principals spec:
In case of conflict, consider users over authors over implementors over specifiers over theoretical purity.
And then he applies the idea to putting images on websites in 2019.
Direct Link to Article...
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the JavaScript
12.2.2019
Around this time last year, I wrote an article about the JavaScript learning landscape. Within that article, you’ll find my grand plans to learn JavaScript — complete with a link to a CodePen Collection I started for tracking my progress, and it even got dozens of comments cheering me on.
Like most...
The Great Divide
21.1.2019
Let’s say there is a divide happening in front-end development. I feel it, but it's not just in my bones. Based on an awful lot of written developer sentiment, interviews Dave Rupert and I have done on ShopTalk, and in-person discussion, it’s, as they say... a thing.
The divide is between people...
How I Built a GPS-Powered Weather Clock With My Old iPhone 4
17.1.2019
My first smartphone was an iPhone 4s. I remember the excitement of exploring its capabilities at a time when it was the coolest thing around. Eventually, of course, I replaced it with a newer model and the old iPhone, still in mint condition, gathered dust for two years. What a waste!
But was...
Slice and Dice a Disc with CSS
13.1.2019
I recently came across an interesting sliced disc design. The disc had a diagonal gradient and was split into horizontal slices, offset a bit from left to right. Naturally, I started to think what would the most efficient way of doing it with CSS be.
Sliced gradient disc.
The first thought...
Why we need CSS subgrid
11.1.2019
I’m a huge fan of CSS Grid and I use it on pretty much every project these days. However, there’s one part of it that makes things much more complicated than they really ought to be: the lack of subgrids. And in this post on the matter, Ken Bellows explains why they’d be so gosh darn useful:
But...
How to Change the WordPress Media Upload Directory
2.1.2019
One thing I’ve always missed about the “old” way of web development was the simplicity of FTP. No deploy scripts, no fuss: simple drag and drop of files and the files are there. I’ve used FTP for assets on this blog for over a decade but I’m finally ready to be lazy...
An Initial Implementation of clip-path: path();
24.12.2018
One thing that has long surprised (and saddened) me is that the clip-path property, as awesome as it is, only takes a few values. The circle() and ellipse() functions are nice, but hiding overflows and rounding with border-radius generally helps there already. Perhaps the most useful value...
Ease-y Breezy: A Primer on Easing Functions
18.12.2018
During the past few months, I’ve been actively teaching myself how to draw and animate SVG shapes. I’ve been using CSS transitions, as well as tools like D3.js, react-motion and GSAP, to create my animations.
One thing about animations in general and the documentation these and other animation...
Making SVG icon libraries for React apps
14.12.2018
Nicolas Gallagher:
At Twitter I used the approach described here to publish the company’s SVG icon library in several different formats: optimized SVGs, plain JavaScript modules, React DOM components, and React Native components.
There is no One True Way© to make an SVG icon system. The only...
What makes someone a good front-end developer?
11.12.2018
We recently covered this exact same thing, but from the perspective of a bunch of developers.
Chris Ferdinandi weighs in:
The least important skills for a front-end developer to have are technical ones.
The nuances of JavaScript. How to use a particular library, framework, or build tool. How...
What do you name color variables?
7.12.2018
What naming scheme do you use for color variables? Have you succeeded at writing CSS that uses color variables in a manner agnostic to the colors they represent?I've tried all of the following, and I have yet to succeed at writing CSS that works well with any color scheme....
Create Animated React Apps With React Spring
5.12.2018
One thing that is pivotal to creating great interactive web applications is animations. Animations add life to your applications and improve the overall user experience.
In this tutorial, w
Sayonara Edge
4.12.2018
Sounds like Edge is going to spin down EdgeHTML, the engine that powers edge, and go with Chromium. It's not entirely clear as I write whether the browser will still be called Edge or not. Opera did this same thing in 2013. We'll surely be seeing much more information about this directly from...
Build a React To-Do App with React Hooks (No Class Components)
13.11.2018
Yes, a to-do app, seems like something we’ve all done in the past. The great thing about a to-do app is that it covers all 4 aspects of CRUD; Create, Read, Update, Delete. As a developer, we need t
There is no longer any such thing as Computer Security
21.9.2018
Remember "cybersecurity"?
Mysterious hooded computer guys doing mysterious hooded computer guy .. things! Who knows what kind of naughty digital mischief they might be up to?
Unfortunately, we now live in a world where this kind of digital mischief is literally rewriting the world's...
Build a state management system with vanilla JavaScript
25.7.2018
Managing state is not a new thing in software, but it’s still relatively new for building software in JavaScript. Traditionally, we’d keep state within the DOM itself or even assign it to a global object in the window. Now though, we’re spoiled with choices for libraries and frameworks to help...
Script & Style Show: Episode 16: JavaScript & LEDs with Kristina Durivage
23.7.2018
In this episode: Todd’s back from an amazing conference and David sees this week’s guest as being the ticket to making his kids thing he’s a super hero. The amazing Kristina Durivage stops by to talk JavaScript, electrical engineering and unusual uses of LEDs for programming...
Unused
11.7.2018
I recently wrote Here’s the thing about "unused CSS" tools, where I tried to enumerate all the challenges any tool would have in finding truly "unused" CSS. The overarching idea is that CSS selectors match elements in the DOM, and those elements in the DOM come from all sorts of places: your static...