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Reader Mode: The Button to Beat
7.1.2019
As a young nerd, I loved to immerse myself in digital worlds, learning the ins and outs of the rules someone else had created for me (intentionally or not). But the older and crankier I get, the more I find myself losing patience when navigating these "delightful" experiences.
This fascination...
The Fragmented, But Evolving State of CSS-in-JS
20.12.2018
TLDR: The CSS-in-JS community has converged on a consistent API.
Not so long ago, a Facebook engineer compiled a list of the available CSS-in-JS methodologies. It wasn’t short:
aphrodite, babel-plugin-css-in-js, babel-plugin-pre-style, bloody-react-styled, classy, csjs, css-constructor, css-light...
Google Fonts and font-display
19.12.2018
The font-display descriptor in @font-face blocks is really great. It goes a long way, all by itself, for improving the perceived performance of web font loading. Loading web fonts is tricky stuff and having a tool like this that works as well as it does is a big deal for the web.
It's such a...
Nobody is quite wrong.
17.12.2018
There are two opposing views on using non-polyfillable new web features that I find are both equally common in our industry:
Websites don't need to look the same in every browser. The concept of progressive enhancement helps with that. There are tools, even native language features, that help with...
Keep Math in the CSS
12.12.2018
There is a sentiment that leaving math calculations in your CSS is a good idea that I agree with. This is for math that you could calculate at authoring time, but specifically chose not to. For instance, if you needed a 7-column float-based grid (don't ask), it's cleaner and more intuitive:
.col...
Web Designs That Feel Like Ancient History, but Are More Recent Than You Think
12.12.2018
Flickr announced not long ago that they are limiting free accounts to 1,000 photos. I don't particularly mind that (because it seems like sound business sense), although it is a bit sad that a ton of photos will be nuked from the internet. I imagine the Internet Archive will swoop in and get most...
Why isn’t it <style src=””>?
10.12.2018
The way JavaScript works is we can do scripts as an inline block:
<script>
let foo = "bar";
</script>
Or, if the script should be fetched from the network...
<script src="/js/global.js"></script>
With CSS, we can do an inline block of styles:
<style>
.foo...
Accessible SVG Icons With Inline Sprites
7.12.2018
This is a great look at accessible SVG markup patterns by Marco Hengstenberg. Here's the ideal example:
<button type="button">
Menu
<svg class="svg-icon"
role="img"
height="10"
width="10"
viewBox="0 0 10 10"
aria-hidden="true"
focusable="false">
...
It’s not about the device.
4.12.2018
Ever have that, "Ugighgk, another device to support?!" feeling? Like, perhaps when you heard that wrist devices have browsers? Ethan's latest post is about that.
Personally, the Apple Watch is interesting to me not because it’s a watch. Rather, it’s interesting to me because it’s...
Bridging the Gap Between CSS and JavaScript: CSS Modules, PostCSS and the Future of CSS
4.12.2018
In the previous post in this two-part series, we explored the CSS-in-JS landscape and, we realized not only that CSS-in-JS can produce critical styles, but also that some libraries don’t even have a runtime. We saw that user experience can significantly improve by adding clever optimizations, which...
Sayonara Edge
4.12.2018
Sounds like Edge is going to spin down EdgeHTML, the engine that powers edge, and go with Chromium. It's not entirely clear as I write whether the browser will still be called Edge or not. Opera did this same thing in 2013. We'll surely be seeing much more information about this directly from...
Blue Beanie Day 2018
30.11.2018
Another year!
You better not cry, you better not shout, I’m telling you why: @BlueBeanieDay is coming Nov. 30! Start sharing your #bbd photos, links, articles, and videos now: https://t.co/3US4vHBsDR#a11y #WebStandards #InclusiveDesign #ProgressiveEnhancement pic.twitter.com/AiV3ktRqka
—...
Build Simple Authentication in Express in 15 Minutes
27.11.2018
Building web pages with user authentication can be a huge pain. You typically need to set up some sort of database to manage users even if you're not using the database for anything else. You would
Script & Style Show: Episode 28: “Get Off My Lawn”, and Other Software Stories with Eric Brandes
18.11.2018
In this episode: Todd and David kick things off bantering about cell phones, Android rot, and the good old days of Windows XP and piracy. Todd’s colleague Eric Brandes gets us back on track with a discussion about trusting proven technologies, not chasing the latest fads, how TrackJS...
Download a YouTube Channel’s Videos
7.11.2018
YouTube is an endless source of entertainment, be it stuff you’re proud to share you like or stuff you would rather others not know about (see: David’s history of watching old WWE Royal Rumbles). I watch a lot of YouTube in hotels and on flights when I don’t have internet access...
Not secure: Chrome a weby na HTTP
30.7.2018
Minulý týden vyšla nová verze Chrome 68, která začala označovat všechny weby na HTTP jako Not secure, česky Nezabezpečeno. Zatím teda jen s šedým (i) v kroužku, bez červeného vykřičníku. Spousta hojně navštěvovaných českých webů ale není připravena. Ukažme si, jak jsme se dostali až sem a co...
Sometimes `sizes` is quite important.
27.7.2018
Paraphrased question from email:
I just read your article Responsive Images: If you’re just changing resolutions, use srcset. In the age of "responsive websites," srcset does not help in certain situations. For example, I have a popular products slider. On mobile, I have one image per slide where...
WDRL — Edition 237: HTTP Not Secure in Chrome, PWA Retrospective, Page Lifecycle API, And Plastic Roads
27.7.2018
Hey,
My Twitter timeline sometimes results in an interesting mix between various topics from the tech industry, politics and human or environmental matters. Today I had such a moment when I scrolled and two tweets made a great connection without the authors knowing about it. First, I read that...
Build a state management system with vanilla JavaScript
25.7.2018
Managing state is not a new thing in software, but it’s still relatively new for building software in JavaScript. Traditionally, we’d keep state within the DOM itself or even assign it to a global object in the window. Now though, we’re spoiled with choices for libraries and frameworks to help...
Realtime Cryptocurrency Rates API with coinlayer
24.7.2018
Last year when cryptocurrencies were gaining massively in value each month, I badly wanted to create a personal web project which would let me quickly buy and sell crypto outside of brokers like Coinbase; the problem I ran into was not having a reliable API for doing so. I recently discovered...