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Some Performance Links
3.7.2020
Just had a couple of good performance links burning a hole in my pocket, so blogging them like a good little blogger.
Web Performance Recipes With Puppeteer
Puppeteer is an Node library for spinning up a copy of Chrome “headlessly” (i.e. no UI) and controlling it. People use it...
When a Line Doesn’t Break
2.7.2020
We expect a line to break when the text on that line reaches the parent box boundaries. We see this every time we create a paragraph, just like this one. When the parent box doesn’t have enough room for the next word in a line, it breaks it and moves down to the next line and repeats that...
A Complete Guide to Dark Mode on the Web
1.7.2020
“Dark mode” is defined as a color scheme that uses light-colored text and other UI elements on a dark-colored background. Dark mode, dark theme, black mode, night mode… they all refer to and mean the same thing: a mostly-dark interface rather than a mostly-light interface.
The post A Complete...
New in Chrome: CSS Overview
1.7.2020
Here’s a fancy new experimental feature in Chrome! Now, we can get an overview of the CSS used on a site, from how many colors there are to the number of unused declarations… even down to the total number of defined media queries.
Again, this is an experimental feature. Not only does that...
Global and Component Style Settings with CSS Variables
1.7.2020
The title of this Sara Soueidan article speaks to me. I’m a big fan of the idea that some CSS is best applied globally, and some CSS is best applied scoped to a component. I’m less interested in how that is done and more interested in just seeing that conceptual approach used in some...
Responsive Styling Using Attribute Selectors
30.6.2020
One of the challenges we face when implementing class-based atomic styling is that it often depends on a specific breakpoint for context.
<div class="span-12"</div<!-- we want this for small screens --<div class="span-6"</div<!-- we want this for medium screens --<div...
Five 5-minute Videos from Ethan on Design & Accessibility
30.6.2020
Ethan:
I’ve been working with Aquent Gymnasium to produce a series of five short tutorial videos, which have been launching over the course of this past week. Since the last video just went live, I’m thrilled to share the whole list with you:
• Introduction to using VoiceOver on macOS•...
When Sass and New CSS Features Collide
29.6.2020
Recently, CSS has added a lot of new cool features such as custom properties and new functions. While these things can make our lives a lot easier, they can also end up interacting with preprocessors, like Sass, in funny ways.
So this is going to be a post about the issues I’ve encountered...
Book: The Greatest CSS Tricks Vol. I
29.6.2020
Ya know, for a site called “CSS-Tricks” that I’ve run for well over a decade, it’s a little funny we’ve never done a book under that name. I’ve written a book about WordPress and SVG, but never CSS!
Well, allow me to change that. I’ve been working on...
In Defense of a Fussy Website
26.6.2020
The other day, I was doom-scrolling Twitter and saw a delightful article titled “The Case for Fussy Breakfasts.” I love food — especially breakfast — and since the pandemic hit I’ve been using my breaks in between meetings (or, shh, sometimes in meetings) to make a full bacon, poached...
Some Typography Links
25.6.2020
I just can’t stop opening excellent typography-related articles, which means I need to subject you to blog posts that round them up so I can clean up my open tabs.
Vistaserve is “a grass-roots web hosting initiative hailing from Thornbury, Australia. Inspired by the quirky web of...
The Analytics That Matter
25.6.2020
I’ve long been skeptical of quoting global browser usage percentages to justify their usage of browser features. It doesn’t matter what global usage of a browser is, other than nerdy cocktail party fodder. The usage that matters is what users on your site are using, and that can...
Hide Scrollbars During an Animation
24.6.2020
CSS still can’t animate to auto dimensions.
.dropdown {
transition: 0.2s;
height: 0;
}
.dropdown.open {
/* the height will change, but it won't animate. */
height: auto;
}
There is JavaScript trickery you can try. Brandon Smith outlined several techniques here a little while back....
How to Make localStorage Reactive in Vue
24.6.2020
Reactivity is one of Vue’s greatest features. It is also one of the most mysterious if you don’t know what it’s doing behind the scenes. Like, why does it work with objects and arrays and not with other things, like localStorage?
Let’s answer that that question, and while we’re at it, make...
Let’s Make a Multi-Thumb Slider That Calculates The Width Between Thumbs
23.6.2020
HTML has an <input type="range">, which is, you could argue, the simplest type of proportion slider. Wherever the thumb of that slider ends up could represent a proportion of whatever is before and whatever is after it (using the value and max attributes). Getting fancier, it’s possible...
An Overview of Scroll Technologies
22.6.2020
Scroll-related animations have been used on the web for years. In recent years, they’ve started to become more common, perhaps in part due to devices being higher-performing and thus able to handle more animation. 
There are a number of scroll related technologies out there, so this article’s...
Using Custom Property “Stacks” to Tame the Cascade
22.6.2020
Since the inception of CSS in 1994, the cascade and inheritance have defined how we design on the web. Both are powerful features but, as authors, we’ve had very little control over how they interact. Selector specificity and source order provide some minimal “layering” control...
Easing Animations in Canvas
19.6.2020
The <canvas> element in HTML and Canvas API in JavaScript combine to form one of the main raster graphics and animation possibilities on the web. A common canvas use-case is programmatically generating images for websites, particularly games. That’s exactly what I’ve done in a website...
Just another +1 for subgrid
19.6.2020
I’d say 85% of my grid usage is in one of these two categories…
I just need some pretty basic (probably equal width) columns that ends up being something like like grid-template-columns: repeat(3, minmax(0, 1fr)); to be safe.
Actually doing some real layout where five minutes in...
Stay DRY Using axios for API Requests
18.6.2020
HTTP requests are a crucial part of any web application that’s communicating with a back-end server. The front end needs some data, so it asks for it via a network HTTP request (or Ajax, as it tends to be called), and the server returns an answer. Almost every website these days does this in some...