Blogs

A collection of my thoughts, tutorials, and insights on web development.

What’s !important #10: HTML-in-Canvas, Hex Maps, E-ink Optimization, and More

Developers have been experimenting with HTML-in-Canvas, a hexagonal world map-analytics feature, a web-based OS for e-ink devices, replacing image sources using the content property, and more. This is What’s !important #10.

The Importance of Native Randomness in CSS

We're getting new functions for generating random numbers in CSS! But the road to get here has been a long and winding one.

Let’s Use the Nonexistent ::nth-letter Selector Now

My shim might give the powers that be another reason to say native support isn't necessary, or if lots of people use my :nth-letter hack in the wild, the browser gods might recognize the need to implement it for real.

Recreating Apple’s Vision Pro Animation in CSS

Putting CSS’s more recent scrolling animation capabilities to the test to recreate a complex animation of the Apple Vision Pro headset from Apple's website.

Enhancing Astro With a Markdown Component

I use a Markdown Component for two main reasons: (1) It reduces the amount of markup I need to write, and (2) it converts typographic symbols. Here's how it works.

Markdown + Astro = ❤️

Although Astro has built-in support for Markdown via .md files, I'd argue that your Markdown experience can be enhanced with MDX.

What’s !important #9: clip-path Jigsaws, View Transitions Toolkit, Name-only Containers, and More

This issue of What’s !important brings you clip-path jigsaws, a view transitions toolkit, name-only containers, the usual roundup of new, notable web platform features, and more.

A Well-Designed JavaScript Module System is Your First Architecture Decision

Behind every technology, there should be a guide for its use. While JavaScript modules make it easier to write “big” programs, if there are no principles or systems for using them, things could easily become difficult to maintain.

The Radio State Machine

One of the best-known examples of CSS state management is the checkbox hack. What if we want a component to be in one of three, four, or seven modes? That is where the Radio State Machine comes in.