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Netlify & Next.js
14.12.2020
Cassidy Williams has been doing a Blogvent (blogging every day for a month) over on the Netlify Blog. A lot of the blog posts are about Next.js. There is a lot to like about Next.js. I just pulled one of Cassidy’s starters for fun. It’s very nice that it has React Fast-Refresh built-in....
Not Much
14.12.2020
What’s one thing I learned about building websites this year? Not all that much.
This year, unlike most previous years, I didn’t explore a lot of new technologies. For obvious reasons, it’s been a difficult year to be as engaged in the hot new topics and to spend time playing around with...
Debugging CSS
14.12.2020
High five to Ahmad Shadeed for releasing his new book, Debugging CSS. I think that’s a neat angle for a book on CSS. There are a ton of books on the general subject of CSS already, so not that they can’t be fresh takes on that, but this feels equally important and less trodden...
MDN on GitHub
14.12.2020
Looks like all the content of MDN is on GitHub now. That’s pretty rad. That’s been the public plan for a while. Chris Mills:
We will be using GitHub’s contribution tools and features, essentially moving MDN from a Wiki model to a pull request (PR) model. This is so much better...
Give Users Control: The Media Session API
14.12.2020
Here’s a scenario. You start a banging Kendrick Lamar track in one of your many open browser tabs. You’re loving it, but someone walks into your space and you need to pause it. Which tab is it? Browsers try to help with that a little bit. You can probably mute the entire system audio. But wouldn’t...
HTTP Archive’s Annual State of the Web Report
14.12.2020
The HTTP Archive looked at more than 7 million websites and compiled their annual report detailing how the sites were built. And there’s an enormous wealth of information about how the web changed in 2020. In fact, this report is more like an enormous book and it’s entirely fabulous. The data comes...
Make it Personal
12.12.2020
One thing I noticed about building websites in 2020: despite all the social networks and publishing platforms craving our content, our stories, and our attention, people are somehow still building personal websites. Over the course of the year, many of you have launched or relaunched your website....
There is No Normal
12.12.2020
This year I learned, or relearned maybe, that “normal” is subjective at best, and pretty misleading otherwise. If this forsaken year has taught us anything, it’s that there is no such thing as normal. Things change. People adapt. Everything is relative to everything else.
Besides being quite...
Let’s Create a Lightweight Native Event Bus in JavaScript
11.12.2020
An event bus is a design pattern (and while we’ll be talking about JavaScript here, it’s a design pattern in any language) that can be used to simplify communications between different components. It can also be thought of as publish/subscribe or pubsub.
The idea is that components can listen...
Why I love Tailwind
11.12.2020
Max Stoiber wrote some interesting notes about why he loves Tailwind. (Max created styled-components, so he has some skin in the styling methodology game.) There’s a lot of great history in this post about how Tailwind emerged and became a valuable tool for designers and engineers alike, but...
Unconventional Stock Image Sources
10.12.2020
This year, I learned that there is a wide world of free stock imagery available beyond Unsplash and Pexels. You see, I’ve been working on designing WordPress themes this year, and all images need to be compatible with the GPL. Unsplash and Pexels both have free and open licenses, but unfortunately...
It’s all relative.
10.12.2020
I remember sitting in the back seat of our family’s Subaru station wagon. I was six and this was long before child carseats were a thing. My dad was at the wheel and my mom played 20 Questions with me while we drove to some vacation spot I can’t even remember.
It was my mom’s turn...
Optimize Images According to Network and Device Constraints in React
10.12.2020
Connectivity has evolved beyond recognition since the beginning of the internet. We are lightyears past dial up, these days, and can watch a video in high resolution on our smartphone while being connected to a mobile network. But not all mobile connections are created equal – older...
Using CSS Custom Properties to Adjust Variable Font Weights in Dark Mode
10.12.2020
Black isn’t always slimming.
When recently testing a dark mode option for one of my sites, I experienced first-hand the issue that Robin Rendle addresses in this article. All of my page text — headings and body copy — appeared to bulk up when I switched to dark mode. And it didn’t matter what fonts...
2020 was not a good year for learning
10.12.2020
There, I said it.
What did I learn about building websites in 2020? A lot. But what I learned is not nearly as important as how I learned it. So instead, I want to share a couple of strategies I used to unblock learning in less-than-ideal times.
I spent almost a decade teaching design and, let...
npm ruin dev
9.12.2020
In 2020, I rediscovered the enjoyment of building a website with plain ol’ HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — no transpilin’, no compilin’, no build tools other than my hands on the keyboard.
Seeing as my personal brand could be summed up “so late to the game that the stadium has been demolished,”...
How to Create a Favicon That Changes Automatically
9.12.2020
I found this Free Favicon Maker the other day. It’s a nice tool to make a favicon (true to its name), but unlike other favicon generators, this one lets you create one from scratch starting with a character or an emoji. Naturally, I was curious to look at the code to see how it works and, while...
Very Extremely Practical CSS Art
9.12.2020
I’ve always enjoyed the CSS art people create, but I’ve never ventured into it much myself. I’m familiar with many of the tricks involved, but still find it surprising every time: the way people are able to make such fluid and beautiful images out of little boxes. I always end...
TypeScript & Relevance
8.12.2020
In our wide world of building for the web, we have every opportunity to talk about tools. We lunge to fill every gap we find in our projects with a definitive technological approach. Some of us are given “a seat at the table” feasting on even the most minuscule of technological debates. This...
Overlaying Video With Transparency While Wrangling Cross-Browser Support
8.12.2020
As websites are becoming more and more dynamic when it comes to design, there is sometimes a need to incorporate complex, animated elements. There are many ways to do that from CSS transitions to 3D rendering on canvas, and animated SVG. But it is often easier to use a <video> since they...