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PHP is A-OK for Templating
4.2.2020
PHP templating often gets a bad rap for facilitating subpar code — but that doesn't have to be the case. Let’s look at how PHP projects can enforce a basic Model, View, Controller (MVC) structure without depending on a purpose-built templating engine.
But first, a very brief PHP history lesson
The...
The Three Types of Code
3.2.2020
Every time I start a new project, I organize the code I’m looking at into three types, or categories if you like. And I think these types can be applied to any codebase, any language, any technology or open source project. Whether I’m writing HTML or CSS or building a React component, thinking...
Freezing User-Agent Strings
3.2.2020
There's been news about Chrome freezing their User-Agent string (and all other major browsers are on board). That means they'll still have a User-Agent (UA) string (that comes across in headers and is available in JavaScript as navigator.userAgent. By freezing it, it will be less useful over time...
Get Moving (or not) with CSS Motion Path
3.2.2020
We just linked up the idea that offset-path can be cleverly used to set type on a path. Don't miss Michelle Barker's experimentation either, with drawing paths or animating text along a path.
Dan Wilson has also been following this tech for quite a while and points out why the sudden surge...
Don’t Invest in Bitcoin Code, Bitcoin Doubler or Bitcoin Trader – They Are All Scams
2.2.2020
Those new to crypto and with money signs in their eyes can easily be taken in by scams, and there are many, thanks to the decentralized nature of bitcoin and the lack of knowledge surrounding it for beginners. Promises of easy and incredible gains thanks to the guidance of some shadowy...
Sticky Table of Contents with Scrolling Active States
30.1.2020
Say you have a two-column layout: a main column with content. Say it has a lot of content, with sections that requires scrolling. And let's toss in a sidebar column that is largely empty, such that you can safely put a position: sticky; table of contents over there for all that content in the main...
“resize: none;” on textareas is bad UX
30.1.2020
Catalin Rosu:
Sometimes you need to type a long reply that consists of many paragraphs and wrapping that text within a tiny textarea box makes it hard to understand and to follow as you type. There were many times when I had to write that text within Notepad++ for example and then just paste...
Understanding Immutability in JavaScript
30.1.2020
If you haven’t worked with immutability in JavaScript before, you might find it easy to confuse it with assigning a variable to a new value, or reassignment. While it’s possible to reassign variables and values declared using let or var, you'll begin to run into issues when you try that with...
How Do You Do max-font-size in CSS?
30.1.2020
CSS doesn't have max-font-size, so if we need something that does something along those lines, we have to get tricky.
Why would you need it at all? Well, font-size itself can be set in dynamic ways. For example, font-size: 10vw;. That's using "viewport units" to size the type, which will...
Resizing Values in Steps in CSS
30.1.2020
There actually is a steps() function in CSS, but it's only used for animation. You can't, for example, tell an element it's allowed to grow in height but only in steps of 10px. Maybe someday? I dunno. There would have to be some pretty clear use cases that something like background-repeat: space...
Practice GraphQL Queries With the State of JavaScript API
29.1.2020
Learning how to build GraphQL APIs can be quite challenging. But you can learn how to use GraphQL APIs in 10 minutes! And it so happens I've got the perfect API for that: the brand new, fresh-of-the-VS-Code State of JavaScript GraphQL API.
The State of JavaScript survey is an annual survey of...
Use and Reuse Everything in SVG… Even Animations!
28.1.2020
If you are familiar with SVG and CSS animations and started to work with them often, here are some ideas you might want to keep in mind before jumping into the job. This article will be about learning how to build and optimize your code with <use> element, CSS Variables and...
Set Type on a Circle… with offset-path
28.1.2020
Here's some legit CSS trickery from yuanchuan. There is this CSS property offset-path. Once upon a time, it was called motion-path and then it was renamed. I sort of rolled my eyes at the time, because the property is so obviously for animating things along a path. But you don't have to use it...
What does “revert” do in CSS?
28.1.2020
Miriam Suzanne has a Mozilla Developer video on the subject. The revert value is fairly new, supported in Firefox and Safari, but not yet in Chrome-world. We've already got a couple of related keywords that work on any property which are meant to help control inheritance and reset values....
Going Beyond Automatic SVG Compression With the “use” Element
27.1.2020
If you draw your own SVG files or if you download them from the internet, tools like this SVG-Editor or SVGOMG are your friends. Compressing the files with those tools takes only few seconds and reduces your file size a lot. But if you need to use your SVG inline to animate or interact with...
“Browser Functions”
26.1.2020
Serverless functions are fairly straightforward. Put a bit of back-end language code, like Node, in the cloud and communicate with it via URL. But what if that URL didn't run a back-end language, it ran an actual browser? Richard Young:
We can now do full stack development using just Web APIs....
Flexible Captioned Slanted Images
25.1.2020
The end result of Eric Meyer's tutorial on creating this row of slanted images is pretty classy. But it's more about the journey than the destination (there isn't even really an isolated demo for it). Eric does an amazing job at talking it through like a thought process.
We did that recently, only...
Bundling JavaScript for Performance: Best Practices
24.1.2020
Performance advice from David Calhoun on how many scripts to load on a page for best performance:
[...] some of your vendor dependencies probably change slower than others. react and react-dom probably change the slowest, and their versions are always paired together, so they...
What’s the Difference Between Width/Height in CSS and Width/Height HTML attributes?
24.1.2020
Some HTML elements accept width and height as attributes. Some do not. For example:
<!-- valid, works, is a good idea --<img width="500" height="400" src="..." alt="..."<iframe width="600" height="400" src="..."</iframe<svg width="20" height="20"</svg<!-- not valid...
Min and Max Width/Height in CSS
24.1.2020
Here's a nice deep dive into min-width / min-height / max-width / max-height from Ahmad Shadeed. I like how Ahmad applies the properties to real-world design situations in addition to explaining how it works. In the very first demo, for example, he shows a button where min-width is used as a method...