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Using GitHub Template Repos to Jump-Start Static Site Projects
4.10.2019
If you’re getting started with static site generators, did you know you can use GitHub template repositories to quickly start new projects and reduce your setup time?
Most static site generators make installation easy, but each project still requires configuration after installation. When...
Weekly Platform News: Tracking via Web Storage, First Input Delay, Navigating by Headings
4.10.2019
In this week's roundup, Safari takes on cross-site tracking, the delay between load and user interaction is greater on mobile, and a new survey says headings are a popular way for screen readers to navigate a webpage.
Let's get into the news.
Safari’s tracking prevention limits web storage
Some...
Adaptive Photo Layout with Flexbox
3.10.2019
Let’s take a look at a super lightweight way to create a horizontal masonry effect for a set of arbitrarily-sized photos. Throw any set of photos at it, and they will line up edge-to-edge with no gaps anywhere.
The solution is not only lightweight but also quite simple. We’ll be using an unordered...
Demonstrating Reusable React Components in a Form
2.10.2019
Components are the building blocks of React applications. It’s almost impossible to build a React application and not make use of components. It’s widespread to the point that some third-party packages provide you with components you can use to integrate functionality into your application.
These...
Zero hands up.
2.10.2019
Asked an entire room full of webdevs yesterday if any of them knew that FF/Chrome/Opera/Brave/etc. for iOS weren't allowed to compete on engine quality.
Zero hands up.
— Alex Russell (@slightlylate) September 25, 2019
It's worth making this clear then. On iOS, the only browser engine...
The Many Ways to Link Up Shapes and Images with HTML and CSS
1.10.2019
Different website designs often call for a shape other than a square or rectangle to respond to a click event. Perhaps your site has some kind of tilted or curved banner where the click area would be awkwardly large as a straight rectangle. Or you have a large uniquely shaped logo where you only...
Multi-Million Dollar HTML
30.9.2019
Two stories:
Jason Grigsby finds Chipotle's online ordering form makes use of an input-masking technique that chops up a credit card expiration year making it invalid and thus denying the order. If pattern="\d\d" maxlength="2" was used instead (native browser feature), the browser is smart enough...
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Git Hooks
30.9.2019
The merits of Git as a version control system are difficult to contest, but while Git will do a superb job in keeping track of the commits you and your teammates have made to a repository, it will not, in itself, guarantee the quality of those commits. Git will not stop you from committing code...
Preloading Pages Just Before They are Needed
27.9.2019
The typical journey for a person browsing a website: view a page, click a link, browser loads new page. That's assuming no funny business like a Single Page App, which still follows that journey, but the browser doesn't load a new page — the client fakes it for the sake of a snappier...
A Codebase and a Community
27.9.2019
I woke up one morning and realized that I had it all wrong. I discovered that code and design are unable to solve every problem on a design systems team, even if many problems can be solved by coding and designing in a dark room all day. Wait, huh? How on earth does that make any sense? Well...
What happens when you open a new install of browsers for the 1st time?
27.9.2019
Interesting research from Jonathan Sampson, where he watches the network requests a browser makes the very first time you launch it on a fresh install, and otherwise do nothing. This gives you a little insight into what kind of information that browser wants to collect and disseminate.
This...
Weekly Platform News: Layout Shifts, Stalled High-Bitrate Videos, Screenshots in Firefox
26.9.2019
In this week's roundup: fighting shifty layouts, some videos might be a bit stalled, and a new way to take screenshots in Firefox.
Let's get into the news!
Identifying the causes of layout shifts during page load
You can now use WebPageTest to capture any layout shifts that occur on your website...
Meeting GraphQL at a Cocktail Mixer
26.9.2019
GraphQL and REST are two specifications used when building APIs for websites to use. REST defines a series of unique identifiers (URLs) that applications use to request and send data. GraphQL defines a query language that allows client applications to specify precisely the data they need from...
Paperform
26.9.2019
Buy or build is a classic debate in technology. Building things yourself might feel less expensive because there is no line item on your credit card bill, but has cost in the form of time. Buying things, believe it or not, is usually less expensive when it comes to technology that isn't your core...
A Dark Mode Toggle with React and ThemeProvider
25.9.2019
I like when websites have a dark mode option. Dark mode makes web pages easier for me to read and helps my eyes feel more relaxed. Many websites, including YouTube and Twitter, have implemented it already, and we’re starting to see it trickle onto many other sites as well.
In this tutorial, we’re...
Filtering Data Client-Side: Comparing CSS, jQuery, and React
24.9.2019
Say you have a list of 100 names:
<ul>
<li>Randy Hilpert</li>
<li>Peggie Jacobi</li>
<li>Ethelyn Nolan Sr.</li>
<!-- and then some -->
</ul>
...or file names, or phone numbers, or whatever. And you want to filter them...
An Explanation of How the Intersection Observer Watches
24.9.2019
There have been several excellent articles exploring how to use this API, including choices from authors such as Phil Hawksworth, Preethi, and Mateusz Rybczonek, just to name a few. But I’m aiming to do something a bit different here. I had an opportunity earlier in the year to present the VueJS...
Browser Engine Diversity
24.9.2019
We lost Opera when they went Chrome in 2013. Same deal with Edge when it also went Chrome earlier this year. Mike Taylor called these changes a "Decreasingly Diverse Browser Engine World" in a talk I'd like to see.
So all we've got left is Chrome-stuff, Firefox-stuff, and Safari-stuff. Chrome...
Link Underlines That Animate Into Block Backgrounds
23.9.2019
It's a cool little effect. The default link style has an underline (which is a good idea) and then on :hover you see the underline essentially thicken up turning into almost what it would have looked liked if you used a background-color on the link instead.
Here's an example of the effect on...
Static First: Pre-Generated JAMstack Sites with Serverless Rendering as a Fallback
23.9.2019
You might be seeing the term JAMstack popping up more and more frequently. I’ve been a fan of it as an approach for some time.
One of the principles of JAMstack is that of pre-rendering. In other words, it generates your site into a collection of static assets in advance, so that it can be served...