Search
A Recap of Frontend Development in 2019
1.1.2020
I noted Trey Huffine’s 2018 version of this article in The Great Divide.
To put a point on this divide a bit more, consider this article by Trey Huffine, "A Recap of Frontend Development in 2018." It's very well done! It points to big moments this year, shows interesting data, and makes...
A Recap of Frontend Development in 2019
1.1.2020
I noted Trey Huffine’s 2018 version of this article in The Great Divide.
To put a point on this divide a bit more, consider this article by Trey Huffine, "A Recap of Frontend Development in 2018." It's very well done! It points to big moments this year, shows interesting data, and makes...
A CSS Tribute to SVG
31.12.2019
This demo from Jérémie Patonnier is incredible. Make sure to look at it in Firefox because some Chrome bug apparently prevents the entire thing from working.
The big idea is that the entire demo is one <rect> element. That's it. It is duplicated with <use> elements when needed,...
Making Room for Variation
30.12.2019
Say you have a design system and you're having a moment where it doesn't have what you need. You need to diverge and create something new. Yesenia Perez-Cruz categorizes these moments from essentially ooops to niiice:
There are three kinds of deviations that come up in...
What it means to be a front-end developer in 2020 (and beyond)
29.12.2019
I wrote a piece for Layout, the blog of my hosting sponsor Flywheel.
Stick around in this field for a while, and you'll see these libraries, languages, build processes, and heck, even entire philosophies on how best to build websites come and go like a slow tide.
You might witness some...
7 Uses for CSS Custom Properties
27.12.2019
I find all seven of these quite clever and useful.
I particularly like using custom properties when you can sneak a variation into a place where you'd normally have to re-declare a whole big chunk of code.
.some-element {
background-color: hsla(
var(--h, 120),
var(--s, 50),
var(--l...
Highlights of the HTTP Archive Web Almanac
23.12.2019
I recently looked at the CSS chapter of the Web Alamanc and had some thoughts. Here, Stefan Judis looks at the whole thing and rounds up the most interesting bits to him. Here are most of them:
20% of sites don't compress their JavaScript.
React is on 5% of sites while jQuery is on 85% of sites....
Create a Static Site Using Angular & Scully
20.12.2019
The team at HeroDevs has just released the alpha version of Scully, a static site generator for Angular. That's right, Angular didn't have an intuitive way to create JAMstack applications before, but now it's possible!
Scully uses a node CLI application to run Angular schematics so you don’t have...
Make a smooth shadow, friend.
19.12.2019
One box-shadow is cool and all, but check out Philipp Brumm's tool for building out comma-separated multiple box-shadows, which result in a much smoother and more natural look.
This reminds me very much of the idea for easing linear-gradient. In a gradient, this smoothing effect is handled...
Zenserp
19.12.2019
(This is a sponsored post.)
There are plenty of rank tracking software tools out there that allow you to track the position of your website inside the search results pages (SERP) of search engines for certain key phrases. However, these tools are definitely not enough when you are trying...
css.gg
18.12.2019
I'm not sure what to call these icons from Astrit Malsija. The title is "500+ CSS Icons, Customizable, Retina Ready & API" and the URL is "css.gg" but they aren't really named anything.
Anyway, their shtick is:
The 🌎's first icon library designed by code.
The idea is that they don't...
Design APIs: The Evolution of Design Systems
17.12.2019
A clever idea from Matthew Ström:
[...] design APIs don’t seem like a stretch of the imagination. An API-driven approach is the natural extension of the work currently being done on design systems, including tokens and standardization projects.
If you buy into the idea of design tokens, that...
The Origin Story of Container Queries
16.12.2019
Container queries don’t exist today but a lot of web developers have been arguing in their favor lately. At first, the idea sounds relatively simple: whereas media queries allow us to make style changes based on the width of the browser, container queries would allow us to make style updates when...
“Link In Bio” is a slow knife
16.12.2019
Anil Dash:
If Instagram users could post links willy-nilly, they might even be able to connect directly to their users, getting their email addresses or finding other ways to communicate with them. Links represent a threat to closed systems.
On CodePen, we have a TextExpander snippet we use...
Adam Argyle’s 2020 CSS Predictions
13.12.2019
I think Adam's first prediction is his boldest, even beyond his Hail Mary prediction. CSS grid is awesome and gap is perhaps one of its best qualities, but gap superseding spacing things out in other ways (e.g. margin) is a bold prediction indeed, especially with Firefox being the only browser...
Yap
13.12.2019
Interesting idea for a "chat room" from Postlight:
Create a Yap chat room.
Invite others to join and talk.
Share a URL of just about anything.
Everyone gathering can comment on what you’ve shared.
If you think your conversation deserves an audience, share the URL of your chat publicly.
Only...
lite-youtube-embed
13.12.2019
A standard copy-and-paste YouTube embed lands on your page as an <iframe> which loads a big ol' pile of other stuff to play that video. But the UX of it is still essentially an image and a play button. Click the play button and the video plays. You can build essentially the same thing with...
Freak Flags
11.12.2019
I don't see image sprites used that much anymore, but it's still a good technique for reducing downloaded decorative image assets when you have multiple on a page. The big idea is combining all the graphics into one and then shifting around the size and background-position to reveal one at...
Making a Better Custom Select Element
11.12.2019
We just covered The Current State of Styling Selects in 2019, but we didn't get nearly as far and fancy as Julie Grundy gets here. There is a decent chunk of JavaScript that powers it, so I'm still very much eyeballing browsers' recent interest in giving us more powerful selects in (presumably)...
WordPress.com: One CMS, Infinite Possibilities
11.12.2019
(This is a sponsored post.)
Have you ever looked at a site and knew exactly what CMS powers it? You might see a distinctive design aesthetic that gives it away. Or maybe it's something even less obvious and even harder to articulate, but you know it when you see it.
That seems true with just about...