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The Thinking Behind Simplifying Event Handlers
9.5.2019
Events are used to respond when a user clicks somewhere, focuses on a link with their keyboard, and changes the text in a form. When I first started learning JavaScript, I wrote complicated event listeners. More recently, I've learned how to reduce both the amount of code I write and the number...
A responsive grid layout with no media queries
9.5.2019
Andy Bell made a really cool demo that shows us how to create a responsive grid layout without any media queries at all. It happens to look like this when you change the size of the browser window:
I think this is a wonderful layout technique that’s just 6 lines (!) of CSS.
.auto-grid...
The Impact of Team Collaboration and Communication on Projects
9.5.2019
(This is a sponsored post.)
The CSS-Tricks team was cracking up the other day when Miranda introduced us to something called "swoop and poop." That was a new term for most of us, but tell me if you've ever experienced this for yourself.
The idea is that someone in an organization — usually...
Getting To Know The MutationObserver API
8.5.2019
MutationObserver watches the DOM, specifically the places you tell it to, like:
document.querySelector('#watch-this');
...and it can tell you (trigger a callback) when stuff happens — like when a child is added, removed, changed, or a number of other things.
I used it just the other day...
The Place of UX
7.5.2019
Every time "UX" comes out of my mouth or is typed by my fingers, I think, "did I just use that term correctly?" It feels like such a big and loaded term these days, that perhaps the way I use it only contributes to the confusion. Ryan Singer frames that problem well:
Debates continue to rage about...
A Conspiracy to Kill IE6
6.5.2019
Chris Zacharias published a few notes about why the team at YouTube added a banner that asked users to switch from IE6 to a more modern browser back in 2009:
The bittersweet consequence of YouTube’s incredible growth is that so many stories will be lost underneath all of the layers of new paint....
Split
2.5.2019
Jeremy on the divide between the core languages of the web, and all the tooling that exists to produce code in those languages:
On the one hand, you’ve got the raw materials of the web: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This is what users will ultimately interact with.
On the other hand, you’ve got...
Easily Turn Your Photos into Vectors with Photo Vectorizer
2.5.2019
(This is a sponsored post.)
Photo Vectorizer is a simple-to-use Photoshop action that can convert any photo into a vector. With just a few clicks of your mouse, you can save tons of time and frustration by turning your photos into vectors. With super sharp results, these vectors are great for...
Naming things to improve accessibility
2.5.2019
I like the this wrap-up statement from Hidde de Vries:
In modern browsers, our markup becomes an accessibility tree that ultimately informs what our interface looks like to assistive technologies. It doesn’t matter as much whether you’ve written this markup:
in a .html file
in Twig, Handlebars...
Earth day, API’s and sunshine.
1.5.2019
Cassie Evans showcases some really nifty web design ideas and explores using the API provided by the company her team over at Clearleft recently hired to cover their building's roof with solar panels. Cassie outlines her journey designing a webpage that uses the API to populate some light data...
Perceived Velocity through Version Numbers
30.4.2019
HTML5 and CSS3 were big. So big that they were buzzwords that actually meant something and were a massive success story in pushing web technology forward. JavaScript names their big releases now too: ES6, ES7, ES8... and it seems like it will keep going that way.
But HTML and CSS are done with that...
Corvid by Wix: Accelerated Development of Web Applications
25.4.2019
(This is a sponsored post.)
It's been interesting to watch Wix evolve from a website builder into a full-fledged platform for developing web applications. It's still just as easy for anyone to spin up a website with the visual builder that's always been there, but Wix Code was introduced a little...
Moving from Gulp to Parcel
25.4.2019
Ben Frain just made some notes about the switch from Gulp to Parcel, a relatively new "web application bundler" which, from a quick look at things, is similar to webpack but without all the hassle of setting things up. One of the things I’ve always disliked about webpack is that you kinda have...
Preload, prefetch and other link tags
24.4.2019
Ivan Akulov has collected a whole bunch of information and know-how on making things load a bit more quickly with preload and prefetch. That's great in and of itself, but he also points to something new to me – the as attribute:
<link rel="preload" href="/style.css" as="style"...
Inclusively Hidden
19.4.2019
Scott O'Hara recently published "Inclusively Hidden," a nice walkthrough of the different ways to hide things on the web. Nothing is ever cut and dry when it comes to the web! What complicates this is that hidden begs the question: hidden for whom? Different answers to that have different...
An Event Apart Boston is Coming. Save Now!
18.4.2019
(This is a sponsored post.)
An Event Apart Boston is almost here! We're talking, like, less than a month away. If you've been holding off from registering, this might be your last chance because time and seating are both limited. Besides, we're talking about three days of pure knowledge-dropping...
Get a CSS Custom Property Value with JavaScript
11.4.2019
Here’s a neat trick from Andy Bell where he uses CSS Custom Properties to check if a particular CSS feature is supported by using JavaScript.
Basically, he's using the ability CSS has to check for browser support on a particular property, setting a custom property that returns a value of either...
While solving for collaboration, we built a product that our own teams love and use everyday!
11.4.2019
(This is a sponsored post.)
Flock is a messaging and collaboration tool built for both designers and developers. With close-to-zero setup, it brings together all your team’s conversations, appointments, and files in one place, helping you spend more time on what you are best at — building...
Under-Engineered Toggles
10.4.2019
Toggles. Switches. Whatever you want to call them, they've been with us for some time and have been a dominant a staple for many form interfaces. They're even baked right into many CSS frameworks, including Bootstrap and Foundation.
It's easy to think of them in binary terms: on and off. Off...
Revisiting the Rendering Tier
5.4.2019
Have you ever created a well-intentioned, thoughtful design system only to watch it grow into an ever-increasing and scary codebase? I've been working in sort of the opposite direction, inheriting the scary codebase and trying to create a thoughtful system from it.
Here's Alex Sanders on the topic...