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Creating your own meme generator
15.6.2018
Almost every time a new meme pops up in my Twitter feed, I think of a witty version to create. I'm not alone in this. Memes are often a way to acknowledge a shared experience or idea. In a variation of the "Is this a pigeon" meme that has been making the rounds online, a designer Daryl Ginn joked...
More Unicode Patterns
14.6.2018
Creating is the most intense excitement one can come to know.
—Anni Albers, On Designing
I recently wrote a post — that was shared here on CSS-Tricks — where I looked at ways to use Unicode characters to create interesting (and random) patterns. Since then, I’ve continued to seek...
Understanding the Almighty Reducer
13.6.2018
I was reently mentoring someone who had trouble with the .reduce() method in JavaScript. Namely, how you get from this:
const nums = [1, 2, 3]
let value = 0
for (let i = 0; i < nums.length; i++) {
value += nums[i]
}
...to this:
const nums = [1, 2, 3]
const value = nums.reduce((ac, next)...
Your Brain on Front-End Development
13.6.2018
Part of the job of being a front-end developer is applying different techniques and technologies to pull of the desired UI and UX. Perhaps you work with a design team and implement their designs. I know when I look at a design (heck, even if I know I'm not going to be building it), my front-end...
A Quick Roundup of Recent React Chatter
12.6.2018
Like many, many others, I'm in the pool of leveling up my JavaScript skills and learning how to put React to use. That's why Brad Frost resonated with me when he posted My Struggle to Learn React."
As Brad does, he clearly outlines his struggles point-by-point:
I have invested enough time...
Creating a Bar Graph with CSS Grid
12.6.2018
If you’re looking for more manageable ways to create bar graphs, or in search of use cases to practice CSS Grid layout, I got you!
Before we begin working on the graph, I want to talk about coding the bars, when Grid is a good approach for graphs, and we’ll also cover some code choices you might...
Versioning Interview
11.6.2018
Adam Roberts (who you might recognize from our interview with him), interviewed me for the Versioning newsletter. I'm publishing my answers here for y'alls perusal as well!
Which dev/tech idea or trend excites you the most at the moment, and why?
I love that new JavaScript has arrived. I don’t...
Digging Into React Context
11.6.2018
You may have wondered lately what all the buzz is about Context and what it might mean for you and your React sites. Before Context, when the management of state gets complicated beyond the functionality of setState, you likely had to make use of a third party library. Thanks to recent updates...
Creating a VS Code Theme
8.6.2018
Everyone has special and perhaps, particular, tastes when it comes to their code editor. There are literally thousands of themes out there, and for good reason: a thing of beauty and enhancement to productivity for one can be a hindrance to another.
It’s been an item on my bucket list to create...
Manipulating Pixels Using Canvas
7.6.2018
Modern browsers support playing video via the <video> element. Most browsers also have access to webcams via the MediaDevices.getUserMedia() API. But even with those two things combined, we can’t really access and manipulate those pixels directly.
Fortunately, browsers have a Canvas...
Animate Images and Videos with curtains.js
6.6.2018
While browsing the latest award-winning websites, you may notice a lot of fancy image distortion animations or neat 3D effects. Most of them are created with WebGL, an API allowing GPU-accelerated image processing effects and animations. They also tend to use libraries built on top of WebGL such...
1 Element CSS Rainbow Gradient Infinity
5.6.2018
I first got the idea to CSS something of the kind when I saw this gradient infinity logo by Infographic Paradise. The gradient doesn't look like in the original illustration, as I chose to generate the rainbow logically instead of using the Dev Tools picker or something like that, but other than...
Combining the Powers of SEM and BIO for Improving CSS
4.6.2018
CSS is easy, some might argue, but that "easiness" can cause messy code. This is especially true through power of preprocessors like Sass or Less where, if you aren’t careful, your CSS can become harder to deal with instead of easier. Sass? Harder? This Gist shows a great example of Sass nesting...
HSL() / HSLa() is great for programmatic color control
1.6.2018
If you ever need to hand-manipulate a color in native CSS, HSL is pretty much the only way. HSL (the hsl() and hsla() functions in CSS) stands for hue, saturation, lightness, and optionally, alpha. We've talked about it before but we can break it down a little more and do some interesting things...
The State of Changing Gradients with CSS Transitions and Animations
1.6.2018
Back in 2012, Internet Explorer 10 came out and, among other things, it finally supported CSS gradients and, in addition to that, the ability to animate them with just CSS! No other browser supported this at the time, but I was hopeful for the future.
Sadly, six years have passed and nothing...
Forms, Auth and Serverless Functions on Gatsby and Netlify
31.5.2018
Abstracting infrastructure is in our DNA. Roads, schools, water supply networks—you get the idea. Web development is no exception: serverless architectures are a beautiful expression of that phenomenon. Static sites, in particular, are turning into dynamic, rich experiences.
Handling static...
Transmit Droplets
30.5.2018
Ethan Marcotte documented his workflow for storing GIFs in a web directory. Sometimes just SFTPing files into a folder is as fancy a workflow as you need, and in fact, modern workflows don't have anything on it!
I've also used Transmit's fancy features for this kind of thing. I prefer saving...
What does the ‘h’ stand for in Vue’s render method?
30.5.2018
If you’ve been working with Vue for a while, you may have come across this way of rendering your app — this is the default in the latest version of the CLI, in main.js:
new Vue({
render: h => h(App)
}).$mount('#app')
Or, if you’re using a render function, possibly to take advantage...
Managing State in React With Unstated
29.5.2018
As your application becomes more complex, the management of state can become tedious. A component's state is meant to be self-contained, which makes sharing state across multiple components a headache. Redux is usually the go-to library to manage state in React, however, depending on how complex...
Solving Life’s Problems with CSS
28.5.2018
Or: When all you have is a CSS hammer, the world looks like a CSS nail.
Whenever I hear a perfectly nice comment like, "Yeah, representing the tech field!" in response to my pure-CSS art, I get a sharp feeling of panic.
Like many people who work on UIs for a living, I have difficulty applying...