I think this is good advice from Silvestar Bistrović:
An enabling selector is what I call a selector that does a job without disabling the particular rule.
The classic example is applying margin to everything, only to have to remove it from the final element because it adds space in a place you don’t want.
.card {
margin-bottom: 1rem;
}
/* Wait but not on the last one!! */
.parent-of-cards :last-child {
margin-bottom: 0;
}
Silvestar refers to as “enabling” because you’re only ever applying this rule — not applying it and then removing it with another selector later. I agree that’s harder to understand and error-prone.
You know like https:? That’s a URL Scheme. You’re probably familiar with the concept, thanks to others that come up in front-end development, like mailto:. You can actually make your own, which is pretty cool. There are a lot of them.
I find that custom URL schemes come up the most with apps that are both web apps and native apps. For example, two that I use nearly every day: Notion and Figma. I love that the things I work on in these apps have URLs. URLs for everything! 🎉
And yet. When I grab the URL to a Notion page, which I do regularly to share with co-workers, I get a URL like…
https://www.notion.so/csstricks/...
That’s fine, and works to open that Notion page in the browser. But I prefer Notion-the-native-app. It’s Electron, so it’s still a web app I guess, but I don’t use it from my web browser, I use it from the application Notion.app on my literal machine.
Geoff shared with me an article the other day that documents how easy it is to make an application’s browser URL open up in the native app instead:
Fortunately, Notion’s dev team thought about that, and built the notion:// link protocol. If you replace the https:// portion of any Notion page link with notion://, your link will automatically open within the native app instead of a web browser.
That’s great that the native scheme is essentially the same as the web scheme, aside from the name. Thomas goes super deep on this with methods to alter the content of clipboard to replace Notion links with the custom scheme.
I just wanted to note a method I think works nicely for me. The trick isn’t to alter the links themselves, but to react to links that you know are Notion links by redirecting them to open in Notion.app.
I prefer to set up Choosy such that it never asks me what browser to use, it just does it based on rules. So under the settings, I have a bunch of apps set up:
For Notion, I watch for links to Notion, and have it open up Notion… that’s it!
The other apps basically do the exact same thing. Works great.
One caveat though! Once in a blue moon, I have to come in here and flip certain applications off. For example, a password reset flow might send me to slack.com or something, for a certain page as part of the flow that is only available through the web. If Choosy is doing its thing, it tries to force that page to open in Slack.app, which it won’t, and you can kinda get trapped. So, I have to come in here and flip it off temporarily.
You may be feeling confused and more than a little frustrated after Google’s recent title rewrite update, but why is Google rewriting titles, and what can we learn from it? Dr. Pete explored over 50,000 <title> tags to find out.
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A bonafide CSS trick if there ever was one! @ShadowShahriar created a CodePen demo that uses pseudo-elements to place commas between list items that are displayed inline, and the result is a natural-looking complete sentence with proper punctuation.
How it works
The trick? First, it’s to make an unordered list an inline element with no markers or spacing:
Next, we display list items inline so they flow naturally as text in a sentence:
li {
display: inline;
}
Then we add commas between list items by selecting their ::after pseudo-element, and setting it’s content property with a comma (,) value.
li::after{
content: var(--separator);
}
Oh, but wait! What about the ol’ Oxford comma? Use :nth-last-of-type() to select the second-to-last list item, and set its ::after pseudo-element’s content property to ", and" before the last list item.
li:nth-last-of-type(2)::after{
content: ", and ";
}
We’re not done. @ShadowShahriar considers an edge case where there are only two items. All we need is to display an “and” between those two items, so:
li:first-of-type:nth-last-of-type(2)::after {
content: " and ";
}
That way, when we can swap those out for other ways to separate list items later. Nice touch.
This caught my eye not only for its clever use of pseudo-element trickery, but also for its simplicity. It’s using tried and true CSS principles in a way that supports semantic HTML — no extra classes, elements, or even JavaScript to help manipulate things. It almost makes me wonder if HTML could use some sort of inline list element (<il> anyone???) to help support sentences convey list items without breaking out of a paragraph.
After the fragmentation effect, I am going to tackle another interesting animation: the blob! We all agree that such effect is hard to achieve with CSS, so we generally reach for SVG to make those gooey shapes. But now that the powerful Paint API is available, using CSS is not only possible, but maybe even a preferable approach once browser support comes around.
Here’s what we’re making. It’s just Chrome and Edge support for now, so check this out on one of those browsers as we go along.
Let’s understand the logic behind drawing a blob using a classic <canvas> element to better illustrate the shape:
When talking about a blob, we’re also talking about the general shape of a distorted circle, so that’s the shape we can use as our base. We define N points that we place around a circle (illustrated in green).
const CenterX = 200;
const CenterY = 200;
const Radius = 150;
const N = 10;
var point = [];
for (var i = 0; i < N; i++) {
var x = Math.cos((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * Radius + CenterX;
var y = Math.sin((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * Radius + CenterY;
point[i] = [x, y];
}
Considering the center point (defined by CenterX/CenterY) and the radius, we calculate the coordinate of each point using some basic trigonometry.
After that, we draw a cubic Bézier curve between our points using quadraticCurveTo(). To do this, we introduce more points (illustrated in red) because a cubic Bézier curve requires a start point, a control point, and an end point.
The red points are the start and end points, and the green points can be the control points. Each red point is placed at the midpoint between two green points.
ctx.beginPath(); /* start the path */
var xc1 = (point[0][0] + point[N - 1][0]) / 2;
var yc1 = (point[0][1] + point[N - 1][1]) / 2;
ctx.moveTo(xc1, yc1);
for (var i = 0; i < N - 1; i++) {
var xc = (point[i][0] + point[i + 1][0]) / 2;
var yc = (point[i][1] + point[i + 1][1]) / 2;
ctx.quadraticCurveTo(point[i][0], point[i][1], xc, yc);
}
ctx.quadraticCurveTo(point[N - 1][0], point[N - 1][1], xc1, yc1);
ctx.closePath(); /* end the path */
Now all we have to do is to update the position of our control points to create the blog shape. Let’s try with one point by adding the following:
The third point is closest to the center of our circle (by about 50px) and our cubic Bézier curve follows the movement perfectly to keep a curved shape.
Let’s do the same with all the points. We can use the same general idea, changing these existing lines:
var x = Math.cos((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * Radius + CenterX;
var y = Math.sin((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * Radius + CenterY;
…into:
var r = 50*Math.random();
var x = Math.cos((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * (Radius - r) + CenterX;
var y = Math.sin((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * (Radius - r) + CenterY;
Each point is offset by a random value between 0 and 50 pixels, bringing each point closer to the center by a slightly different amount. And we get our blob shape as a result!
Now we apply that shape as a mask on an image using the CSS Paint API. Since we are dealing with a blobby shape, it’s suitable to consider square elements (height equal to width) instead, where the radius is equal to half the width or height.
Here we go using a CSS variable (N) to control the number of points.
I highly recommend reading the first part of my previous article to understand the structure of the Paint API.
Each time the code runs, we get a new shape, thanks to the random configuration.
Let’s animate this!
Drawing a blog is good and all, but animating it is better! Animating the blob is actually the main purpose of this article, after all. We will see how to create different kinds of gooey blob animations using the same foundation of code.
The main idea is to smoothly adjust the position of the points — whether it’s all or some of them — to transition between two shapes. Let’s start with the basic one: a transition from a circle into a blob by changing the position of one point.
I get the value of this variable inside the paint() function and use it to define the position of our point.
If you check the code in the embedded linked demo, you will notice this:
if(i==0)
var r = RADIUS - B;
else
var r = RADIUS
All the points have a fixed position (defined by the shape’s radius) but the first point specifically has a variable position, (RADIUS- B ). On hover, The value of B is changing from 0 to 100, moving our point closer to the middle while creating that cool effect.
Let’s do this for more points. Not all of them but only the even ones. I will define the position as follow:
We have our first blob animation! We defined 20 points and are making half of them closer to the center on hover.
We can easily have different blobby variations simply by adjusting the CSS variables. We define the number of points and the final value of the B variable.
Now let’s try it with some random stuff. Instead of moving our points with a fixed value, let’s make that value random move them all around. We previously used this:
var r = RADIUS - B*(i%2);
Let’s change that to this:
var r = RADIUS - B*random();
…where random() gives us a value in the range [0 1]. In other words, each point is moved by a random value between 0 and B . Here’s what we get:
See that? We get another cool animation with the same code structure. We only changed one instruction. We can make that instruction a variable so we can decide if we want to use the uniform or the random configuration without changing our JavaScript. We introduce another variable, T, that behaves like a boolean:
if(T == 0)
var r = RADIUS - B*(i%2);
else
var r = RADIUS - B*random();
We have two animations and, thanks to the T variable, we get to decide which one to use. We can control the number of points using N and the distance using the variable V. Yes, a lot of variables but don’t worry, we will sum up everything at the end.
What is that random() function doing?
It’s the same function I used in the previous article. We saw there that we cannot rely on the default built-in function because we need a random function where we are able to control the seed to make sure we always get the same sequence of random values. So the seed value is also another variable that we can control to get a different blob shape. Go change that value manually and see the result.
In the previous article, I mentioned that the Paint API removes all of the complexity on the CSS side of things, and that gives us more flexibility to create complex animations. For example, we can combine what we have done up to this point with keyframes and cubic-bezier():
The demo includes another example using the parabolic curve I detailed in a previous article.
Controlling the movement of the points
In all the blobs we’ve created so far, we considered the same movement for our points. Whether we’re using the uniform configuration or the random one, we always move the points from the edge to the center of the circle following a line.
Now let’s see how we can control that movement in order to get even more animations. The idea behind this logic is simple: we move the x and y differently.
Previously we were doing this:
var x = Math.cos((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * (Radius - F(B)) + CenterX;
var y = Math.sin((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * (Radius - F(B)) + CenterY;
…where F(B) is a function based on the variable B that holds the transition.
Now we will have something like this instead:
var x = Math.cos((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * (Radius - Fx(B)) + CenterX;
var y = Math.sin((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * (Radius - Fy(B)) + CenterY;
…where we’ve updating the x and y variables differently to makes more animations. Let’s try a few.
One axis movement
For this one, we will make one of the functions equal to 0 and keep the other one the same as before. In other words, one coordinate remains fixed along the animation
The points are only moving horizontally to get another kind of effect. We can easily do the same for the other axis by making Fx(B)=0 (see a demo).
I think you get the idea. All we have to do is to adjust the functions for each axis to get a different animation.
Left or right movement
Let’s try another kind of movement. Instead of making the points converging into the center, let’s make them move into the same direction (either right or left). We need a condition based on the location of the point which is defined by the angle.
We have two group of points: ones in the [90deg 270deg] range (the left side), and the remaining points along the ride side of the shape. If we consider the indexes, we can express the range differently, like [0.25N0.75N] where N is the number of points.
The trick is to have a different sign for each group:
var sign = 1;
if(i<0.75*N && i>0.25*N)
sign = -1; /* we invert the sign for the left group */
if(T == 0)
var r = RADIUS - B*sign*(i%2);
else
var r = RADIUS - B*sign*random();
var x = Math.cos((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * r + cx;
We are able to get the same direction but with one small drawback: one group of the points are going outside the mask area because we are increasing the distance on some points while decreasing the distance on others. We need to reduce the size of our circle to leave enough space for all of our points.
We simply decrease the size of our circle using the V value that defines the final value for our B variable. In other words, it’s the maximum distance that one point can reach.
Our initial shape (illustrated by the grey area and defined with the green points) will cover a smaller area since we will decrease the Radius value with the value of V:
const V = parseFloat(properties.get('--v'));
const RADIUS = size.width/2 - V;
We fixed the issue of the points getting outside but we have another small drawback: the hover-able area is the same, so the effect starts even before the cursor hits the image. It would be good if we can also reduce that area so everything is consistent.
The extra wrapper is an inline-block element. The image inside it has negative margins equal to the V variable which reduces the overall size of the shape’s box. Then we disable the hover effect on the image element (using pointer-events:none) so only the box element triggers the transition. Finally we add some margin to the box element to avoid any overlap.
Like the previous effect, this one can also be combined with cubic-bezier() and keyframes to get more cool animations. Below is an example using my sinusoidal curve for a wobbling effect on hover.
Let’s tackle another interesting movement that will allow us to create infinite and “realistic” blob animations. Instead of moving our points from one location to another, we will rotate them around an orbit to have a continuous movement.
The initial location of our points (in green) will become an orbit and the red circle is the path that our points will take. In other words, each point will rotate around its initial position following a circle having a radius r.
All we need to do is make sure there is no overlap between two adjacent paths so the radius need to have a maximum allowed value.
I will not detail the math but the max value is equal to:
var r = (size.width)*Math.sin(Math.PI/(N*2));
const RADIUS = size.width/2 - r;
// ...
for(var i = 0; i < N; i++) {
var rr = r*random();
var xx = rr*Math.cos(B * (2 * Math.PI));
var yy = rr*Math.sin(B * (2 * Math.PI));
var x = Math.cos((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * RADIUS + xx + cx;
var y = Math.sin((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * RADIUS + yy + cy;
point[i] = [x,y];
}
We get the max value of the radius and we reduce that value from the main radius. Remember that we need to have enough space for our points so we need to reduce the mask area like we did with the previous animation. Then for each point we get a random radius rr (between 0 and r). Then we calculate the position inside the circular path using xx and yy. And, finally, we place the path around its orbit and get the final position (the x, y values).
Notice the value B which is, as usual, the one with the transition. This time, we will have a transition from 0 to 1 in order to make a full turn around the orbit.
Spiral movement
One more for you! This one is a combination of the two previous ones.
We saw how to move the points around a fixed orbit and how to move a point from the edge of the circle to the center. We can combine both and have our point move around an orbit and we do the same for the orbit by moving it from the edge to the center.
Let’s add an extra variable to our existing code:
for(var i = 0; i < N; i++) {
var rr = r*random();
var xx = rr*Math.cos(B * (2 * Math.PI));
var yy = rr*Math.sin(B * (2 * Math.PI));
var ro = RADIUS - Bo*random();
var x = Math.cos((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * ro + xx + cx;
var y = Math.sin((i / N) * (2 * Math.PI)) * ro + yy + cy;
point[i] = [x,y];
}
As you can see, I used the exact same logic as the very first animation we looked at. We reduce the radius with a random value (controlled with Bo in this case).
Yet another fancy blob animation! Now each element has two animations: one animates the orbit (Bo), and the other animates the point in its circular path (B). Imagine all the effects that you can get by simply adjusting the animation value (duration, ease, etc.)!
Putting everything together
Oof, we are done with all the animations! I know that some of you may have gotten lost with all the variations and all the variables we introduced, but no worries! We will sum everything up right now and you will see that it’s easier than what might expect.
I want to also highlight that what I have done is not an exhaustive list of all the possible animations. I only tackled a few of them. We can define even more but the main purpose of this article is to understand the overall structure and be able to extend it as needed.
Let’s summarize what we have done and what are the main points:
The number of points (N): This variable is the one that controls the granularity of the blob’s shape. We define it in the CSS and it is later used to define the number of control points.
The type of movement (T): In almost all the animations we looked at, I always considered two kind of animations: a “uniform” animation and a “random” one. I am calling this the type of movement that we can control using the variable T set in the CSS. We will have somewhere in the code to do an if-else based on that T variable.
The random configuration: When dealing with random movement, we need to use our own random() function where we can control the seed in order to have the same random sequence for each element. The seed can also be considered a variable, one that generates different shapes.
The nature of movement: This is the path that the points take. We can have a lot of variations, for example:
From the edge of the circle to the center
A one axis movement (the x or y axis)
A circular movement
A spiral movement
and many others…
Like the type of movement, the nature of the movement can also be made conditional by introducing another variable, and there is no limit to what can be done here. All we have to do is to find the math formula to create another animation.
The animation variable (B): This is the CSS variable that contains the transition/animation. We generally apply a transition/animation from 0 to a certain value (defined in all the examples with the variable V). This variable is used to express the position of our points. Updating that variable logically updates the positions; hence the animations we get. In most cases, we only need to animate one variable, but we can have more based on the nature of the movement (like the spiral one where we used two variables).
The shape area: By default, our shape covers the entire element area, but we saw that some movement require the points to go outside the shape. That’s why we had to reduce the area. We generally do this by the maximum value of B (defined by V), or a different value based on the nature of the movement.
Our code is structured like this:
var point = [];
/* The center of the element */
const cx = size.width/2;
const cy = size.height/2;
/* We read all of the CSS variables */
const N = parseInt(properties.get('--n')); /* number of points */
const T = parseInt(properties.get('--t')); /* type of movement */
const Na = parseInt(properties.get('--na')); /* nature of movement */
const B = parseFloat(properties.get('--b')); /* animation variable */
const V = parseInt(properties.get('--v')); /* max value of B */
const seed = parseInt(properties.get('--seed')); /* the seed */
// ...
/* The radius of the shape */
const RADIUS = size.width/2 - A(V,T,Na);
/* Our random() function */
let random = function() {
// ...
}
/* we define the position of our points */
for(var i = 0; i < N; i++) {
var x = Fx[N,T,Na](B) + cx;
var y = Fy[N,T,Na](B) + cy;
point[i] = [x,y];
}
/* We draw the shape, this part is always the same */
ctx.beginPath();
// ...
ctx.closePath();
/* We fill it with a solid color */
ctx.fillStyle = '#000';
ctx.fill();
As you can see, the code is not as complex as you might have expected. All the work is within those function Fx and Fy, which defines the movement based on N,T and Na. We also have the function A that reduces the size of the shape to prevent points overflowing the shape during the animation.
I think the code is self-explanatory. You define the variables, apply the mask, and animate the B variable using either a transition or keyframes. That’s all!
I will end this article with a final demo where I put all the variations together. All you have to do is to play with the CSS variables
Miriam answers seven of the most common questions from searchers looking for an introductory understanding of what “local SEO” means, who needs it, how it works, how to study it, and more!
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That’s a heartwrenching title from Michael Williamson. I believe it though. It’s kinda like a maximized version of the blogging phenomenon where if you work on a post for weeks it’ll flop compared to a post that’s some dumb 20-minute thought. Or how your off-handed remark to some developer at the perfect time might cause some huge pivot in what they are doing, changing the course of a project forever. For Mike, it was a 3,000 line-of-code side project that had more impact on the world than a career of work as a software developer.
I’ve tried to pick companies working on domains that seem useful: developer productivity, treating diseases, education. While my success in those jobs has been variable – in some cases, I’m proud of what I accomplished, in others I’m pretty sure my net effect was, at best, zero – I’d have a tough time saying that the cumulative impact was greater than my little side project.
Impact is fuzzy though, isn’t it? I don’t know Mike, but assuming he is a kind and helpful person, think of all the people he’s likely helped along the way. Not by just saving them minutes of toil, but helped. Helped grow, helped through hard times, helped guide to where they ought to go. Those things are immeasurable and awfully important.
What options do you have if you want the body background in a fixed position where it stays put on scroll? background-attachment: fixed in CSS, at best, does not work well in mobile browsers, and at worst is not even supported by the most widely used mobile browsers. You can ditch this idea completely and let the background scroll on small screens using media queries.
Or get around it with a small fix. I suppose we could call it a “hack” since it’s a workaround in code that arguably we shouldn’t have to do at all.
The issue
Before I show you the fix, let’s examine the issue. We can see it by looking at two different approaches to CSS backgrounds:
a background using a linear gradient
a background using an image
Linear gradient
I want to keep the background gradient in a fixed position on scroll, so let’s apply basic CSS styling to the body that does exactly that:
Here are the results in Chrome and Firefox, both on Android, respectively:
Chrome Android
Firefox Android
The gradient simply scrolls along with other content then jumps back. I don’t know exactly why that is — maybe when the URL tab goes up or disappears on scroll and the browser finds it difficult to re-render the gradient in real time? That’s my best guess since it only seems to happen in mobile browsers.
If you’re wondering about iOS Safari, I haven’t tested on iOS personally, but the issue is there too. Some have already reported the issue and it appears to behave similarly.
The grey section at the top just indicates the presence of an actual URL bar in Chrome Android.
Another interesting thing to note is that when background-attachment: fixed is applied, the height is ignored even if we explicitly specify it. That’s because background-attachment calculates a fixed background position relative to the viewport.
Even if we say the body is 100vh, background-attachment: fixed is not exactly in accordance with it. Weird! Perhaps the reason is that background-attachment: fixed relies on the smallest possible viewport while elements rely on the largest possible viewport. David Bokan explains,
Lengths defined in viewport units (i.e. vh) will not resize in response to the URL bar being shown or hidden. Instead, vh units will be sized to the viewport height as if the URL bar is always hidden. That is, vh units will be sized to the “largest possible viewport”. This means 100vh will be larger than the visible height when the URL bar is shown.
Firefox does not appear to support the local value when applied on a textarea element.
Chrome has an issue that occurs when using the will-change property on a selector which also has background-attachment: fixed defined. It causes the image to get cut off and gain whitespace around it.
iOS has an issue preventing background-attachment: fixed from being used with background-size: cover.
Let’s fix it
Call it a temporary hack, if you will. Some of you may have already tried it. Whatever the case, it fixes the linear gradient and background image issues we just saw.
So, as you know, we are getting in trouble with the background-attachment: fixed property and, as you might have guessed, we are removing it from our code. If it’s looking at the smallest possible viewport, then maybe we should be working with an element that looks for the largest possible viewport and position that instead.
So, we are creating two separate elements — one for the background-gradient and another for the rest of the content. We are replacing background-attachment: fixed with position: fixed.
.bg {
background: linear-gradient(335deg, rgba(255,140,107,1) 0%, rgba(255,228,168,1) 100%);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: center;
height: 100vh;
width: 100vw;
position: fixed;
/* z-index usage is up to you.. although there is no need of using it because the default stack context will work. */
z-index: -1; // this is optional
}
Now, wrap up the rest of the content — except for the element containing the background image — inside a main container.
We can use the same trick hack with background images and it works fine. However, you do get some sort of background scrolling when the URL bar hides itself, but the white patch is no longer there.
A fixed-position element with a height set to 100% behaves just like the element with background-attachment: fixed property, which is clearly evident in the example below! Just observe the right-most bar (purple color) in the video.
Even though, David Bokan in his article states that:
That is, a position: fixed element whose containing block is the ICB will resize in response to the URL bar showing or hiding. For example, if its height is 100% it will always fill exactly the visible height, whether or not the URL bar is shown. Similarly for vh lengths, they will also resize to match the visible height taking the URL bar position into account.
If we take into account that last sentence, that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Elements that have fixed positioning and 100vh height don’t change their height whether the URL bar is shown or not. In fact, the height is according to the height of the “largest possible viewport”. This is evident in the example below. Just observe the light blue colored bar in the video.
So, it appears that, when working with a container that is 100vh, background-attachment: fixed considers the smallest possible viewport height while elements in general consider the largest possible viewport height.
For example, background-attachment: fixed simply stops working when a repaint is needed, like when a mobile browser’s address bar goes away on scroll. The browser adjusts the background according to the largest possible viewport (which is now, in fact, the smallest possible viewport as URL bar is hidden) and the browser isn’t efficient enough to repaint on the fly, which results in a major lag.
Our hack addresses this by making the background an element instead of, well, an actual background. We give the element containing the content an absolute position to stack it on top of the element containing the image, then apply a fixed position on the latter. Hey, it works!
Note that the viewport height is calculated excluding the navigation bar at the bottom (if present). Here’s a comparison between the presence and absence of navigation bar at the bottom in Chrome Android.
Is there a downside? Perhaps! We’re using a general <div> instead of an actual <img> tag, so I wouldn’t say the markup is semantic. And that can lead to accessibility issues. If you’re working with an image that adds meaning or context to the content, then an <img> is the correct way to go, utilizing a proper alt description for screen readers.
But if we go the proper <img> route, then we’re right back where we started. Also, if you have a navigation bar at the bottom which too auto hides itself, then I can’t help it. If the hack won’t cut it, then perhaps JavaScript can come to the rescue.
There is a conversation that has been percolating for as long as I’ve been in the web design and development industry. It’s centered around the conflict between design tools and development tools. The final product of web design is often a mockup. The old joke was that web developers make websites and web designers make paintings of websites. That disconnect is a source of immense friction. Which is the source of truth?
What if there really could be a single source of truth. What if the design tool works on the same exact code as the production website? The latest chapter in this epic conversation is UXPin.
Let’s set up the facts so you can see this all play out.
UXPin is an in-browser design tool.
UXPin is a powerful design tool with all the features you’d expect, particularly focused on digital screen-based design.
The fact that it is in-browser is extra great here. Designing websites… on a website is an obvious and natural fit. It means what you are looking at is how it’s going to look. This is particularly important with typography! The implementer of this card component can see exact colors (in the right formats) are being used, as well as the exact pixel dimensions, etc.
Over a decade ago, Jason Santa Maria thought a lot about what a next-gen design tool would look like. Could we just use the browser directly?
I don’t think the browser is enough. A web designer jumping into the browser before tackling the creative and messaging problems is akin to an architect hammering pieces of wood together and then measuring afterwards. The imaginative process is cut short by the tools at hand; and it’s that imagination—or spark—at the beginning of a design that lays the path for everything that follows.
Perhaps not the browser directly, but a design tool within a browser, that could be the best of both worlds:
An application like this could change the process of web design considerably. Most importantly, it wouldn’t be a proxy application that we use to simulate the way webpages look—it would already speak the language of the web. It would truly be designing in the browser.
It’s so cool to see this play out in a way that aligns with what great designers envisioned before it was possible, and with new aspects that melt with today’s technological possibilities.
You can work on your own React components within UXPin.
This is where the source of truth magic can happen. It’s one thing if a design tool can output a React (or any other framework) component. That’s a neat trick. But it’s likely to be a one-way trip. Components in real-world projects are full of other things that aren’t entirely the domain of design. Perhaps a component uses a hook to return the current user’s permissions and disable a button if they don’t have access. The disabled button has an element of design to it, but most of that code does not.
It’s impractical to have a design tool that can’t respect other code in that component and essentially just leave it alone. Essentially, it’s not really a design tool if it exports components but can’t import them.
Now, fair is fair, this is going to take a little work to set up. Might just be a couple of hours, or it might take few days for a complete design system. UXPin only works with React and uses a webpack configuration to integrate it.
Once you’ve gotten in going, the components you use in UXPin are very literally the components you use to build your production website.
It’s pretty impressive really, to see a design tool digest pre-built components and allow them to be used on an entirely new canvas for prototyping.
They’ve got lots of help for you on getting this going on your project, including:
As it should, it’s likely to influence how you build components.
Components tend to have props, and props control things like design and content inside. UXPin gives you a UI for the props, meaning you have total control over the component.
Knowing that, you might give yourself a prop interface for your components that provides you with lots of design control. For example, integrating theme switching.
This is all even faster with Storybook.
Another awfully popular tool in JavaScript-components-land to view your components is Storybook. It’s not a design tool like UXPin—it’s more like a zoo for your components. You might already have it set up, or you might find value in using Storybook as well.
The great news? UXPin Merge works together awesomely with Storybook. It makes integration super quick and easy. Plus then it supports any framework, like Angular, Svelte, Vue, etc—in addition to React.
What if designers could use the very same components used by engineers and they’re all stored in a shared design system (with accurate documentation and tests)? Many of the frustrating and expensive misunderstandings between designers and engineers would stop happening.
And a plan:
Connect to any Git repo.
Learn about all the components in that repo.
Make those components available to the UXPin visual editor.
Watch for any changes to the repo and reflect those changes in the visual editor.
Let designer’s design and deliver accurate specs to developers for using those components.
When compared to a typical B2C business, the sales cycle in B2B means that users will be visiting your site multiple times throughout their sales cycle before making a final purchase. To encourage conversion, you need to be reaching them at each different stage in their journey.
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When I think about what front-end development really is and feels like, this is at the heart of it: designing around a huge set of unknowns, and really embracing that notion as a strength of the web rather than a weakness or unfortunate truth we have to work around.
Cathy Dutton digs into this with real code and examples over on A List Apart. A recurring theme is the idea that content (certainly an unknown, since content changes) can and should drive design decisions. It is even floated that container queries might not be all they are cracked up to be since they are still based on a parent, not content.
It’s hard to say for sure whether container queries will be a success story until we have solid cross-browser support for them. Responsive component libraries would definitely evolve how we design and would improve the possibilities for reuse and design at scale. But maybe we will always need to adjust these components to suit our content.
We can’t design the same way we have for this ever-changing landscape, but we can design for content. By putting content first and allowing that content to adapt to whatever space surrounds it, we can create more robust, flexible designs that increase the longevity of our products.
The perfect link — Rian Rietveld defines them: “When you click on them, they take you somewhere else.” Not much code in here (we’ve got that), just a lot of practical accessibility advice. For example, the alt text for a linked image can allude to the fact that it is a link. Just an image: “A cherry tree in full bloom.” Link: “Wikipedia on cherry blossoms.”
Google Announces Seismic Change to Docs — George Joeckel covers the unfolding news that Google Docs is going to be rendered in <canvas>, which feels like a massive WTF moment when it comes to accessibility. At one point, the vibe was that there would be a separate product for people with screen reader needs. Separate but equal isn’t a good situation. Looks like the <canvas> based rendering stuff is on hold for now, so community feedback FTW?
prefers-reduced-motion and browser defaults — Speaking of prefers-reduced-motion, Bruce Lawson on the paragraph-of-the-year: Yes, it was a meeting request from Marketing to discuss a new product page with animations that are triggered on scroll. Much as a priest grasps his crucifix when facing a vampire, I immediately reached for Intersection Observer to avoid the browser grinding to a halt when watching to see if something is scrolled into view. And, like an exoricst sprinkling holy water on a demon, I also cleansed the code with a prefers-reduced-motion media query.
Using CSS to Enforce Accessibility — Adrian Roselli covers this great tactic where you don’t get the proper CSS styling unless you’ve also implemented the appropriate accessibility attributes (e.g. [role="region"][aria-labelledby][tabindex] for a scrolling table). This is a powerful idea and happens to showcase the power of CSS nicely in a way that styling solutions that avoid using selectors don’t benefit from.
Accessibility testing with Storybook — Varun Vachhar covers how you can run Axe over your component library even as you code. Accessibility issues, like color contrast problems, are bugs. Might as well give yourself the same tooling opportunities to fix them at the same time you’d fix any other bug.
Making A Strong Case For Accessibility — Todd Libby covers how you can fight for accessibility at work. Attempt 1.) Ethical. Attempt 2.) Financial. Attempt 3.) Legal. 4.) Humanization. Attempt 5.) Don’t ask, just do it.
Your Image Is Probably Not Decorative — Eric Bailey covers that most images with an empty alt attribute (literally alt="", no space) probably should have had one, and that when and alt description isn’t available, there are other options (e.g. make it available as an inline image (spacer.gif) even if it isn’t one otherwise, <title> in SVG, etc.).
Writing great alt text: Emotion matters — Annnnd speaking of alt, Jake Archibald learns from a 2011 Léonie Watson article: The relevant parts of an image aren’t limited to the cold hard facts.
Caitlin and Kristi cover the basics of Adobe Analytics for SEO, and guide you through creating a simple dashboard. To learn more, check out the full guide on Moz’s SEO Learning Center!
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While learning Vue.js, I started building free web tools that involved the exploration of SVG, with the goal of learning something about both! Let’s take a look at one of those tools: a generator that makes SVG loaders and lets you choose between SMIL or Sass animation, different styles, colors, shapes, and effects. It even lets you paste in a custom path or text, and then download the final SVG, copy the code, or open a demo over at CodePen.
How it started
Three coincidences led me to build a generator for SVG loaders.
Coincidence 1: Sarah Drasner’s book
The first time I read about Sass loops was in Sarah Drasner’s SVG Animations. She shows how to stagger animations with a Sass function (like the does in Chapter 6, “Animating Data Visualizations”).
I was inspired by that chapter and the possibilities of Sass loops.
Coincidence 2: A GIF
At that same point in life, I was asked to replicate a “loader” element, similar to Apple’s old classic.
This is a mockup of the loader I was asked to make.
I referenced Sarah’s example to make it happen. This is the Sass loop code I landed on:
@for $i from 1 to 12 {
.loader:nth-of-type(#{$i}) {
animation: 1s $i * 0.08s opacityLoader infinite;
}
}
@keyframes opacityLoader {
to { opacity: 0; }
}
This defines a variable for a number (i) from 1 to 12 that increases the delay of the animation with every :nth-child element. It was the perfect use case to animate as many elements as I wanted with only two lines of Sass, saving me CSS declarations for each of the delays I needed. This is the same animation, but written in vanilla CSS to show the difference:
With these things going on in my head, I had an idea for a gallery of loaders, where each loader is made from the same Sass loop. I always struggle to find these kinds of things online, so I thought it might be useful for others, not to mention myself.
I was blocked by my own developer skills while creating a generator that produces the right Sass output. I decided to try another animation approach with SMIL animations, and that’s what I wound up deciding to use.
But then I received some help (thanks, ekrof!) and got Sass to work after all.
So, I ended up adding both options to the generator. I found it was a challenge to make both languages return the same result. In fact, they sometimes produce different results.
SMIL vs. CSS/Sass
I learned quite a bit about SMIL and CSS/Sass animations along the way. These are a few of the key takeaways that helped me on my way to making the generator:
SMIL doesn’t rely on any external resources. It animates SVG via presentation attributes directly in the SVG markup. That’s something that neither CSS nor Sass can do.
SMIL animations are preserved when an SVG is embedded as an image or as a background image. It is possible to add a CSS <style> block directly inside the SVG, but not so much with Sass, of course. That’s why there is an option to download the actual SVG file when selecting the SMIL option in the generator.
SMIL animations look a bit more fluid. I couldn’t find the reason for this (if anyone has any deeper information here, please share!). I though it was related to GPU acceleration, but it seems they both use the same animation engine.
SMIL (left) and Sass (right)
You might notice a difference in the chaining of the animations between both languages:
I used additive="sum" in SMIL to add animations one after the other. This makes sure each new animation effect avoids overriding the previous animation.
That said, in CSS/Sass, the W3C points out that [when] multiple animations are attempting to modify the same property, then the animation closest to the end of the list of names wins.
That’s why the order in which animations are applied might change the Sass output.
Working with transforms
Working with transformations in the loader’s styling was a big issue. I had applied transform: rotate inline to each shape because it’s a simple way to place them next to each other in a circle and with a face pointing toward the center.
I could declare a type in SMIL with <animateTransform> (e.g. scale or translate) to add that specific transform to the original transformation of each shape:
But instead, transform in CSS was overriding any previous transform applied to the inline SVG. In other words, the original position reset to 0 and showed a very different result from what SMIL produced. That meant the animations wound up looking identical no matter what.
The (not very pretty) solution to make the Sass similar to SMIL was to place each shape inside a group (<g>) element, and apply the inline rotation to the groups, and the animation to the shapes. This way, the inline transform isn’t affected by the animation.
I used Vue.js and Nuxt.js. Both have great documentation, but there are more specific reasons why I choose them.
I like Vue for lots of reasons:
Vue encapsulates HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as a “single file component” where all the code lives in a single file that’s easier to work with.
The way Vue binds and dynamically updates HTML or SVG attributes is very intuitive.
HTML and SVG don’t require any extra transformations (like making the code JSX-compatible).
As far as Nuxt goes:
It has a quick boilerplate that helps you focus on development instead of configuration.
There’s automatic routing and it supports auto-importing components.
It’s a good project structure with pages, components, and layouts.
It’s easier to optimize for SEO, thanks to meta tags.
Let’s look at a few example loaders
What I like about the end result is that the generator isn’t a one-trick pony. There’s no one way to use it. Because it outputs both SMIL and CSS/Sass, there are several ways to integrate a loader into your own project.
Download the SMIL SVG and use it as a background image in CSS
Like I mentioned earlier, SMIL features are preserved when an SVG is used as a background image file. So, simply download the SVG from the generator, upload it to your server, and reference it in CSS as a background image.
Similarly, we could use the SVG as a background image of a pseudo-element:
Drop the SVG right into the HTML markup
The SVG doesn’t have to be a background image. It’s just code, after all. That means we can simply drop the code from the generator into our own markup and let SMIL do its thing.
Use a Sass loop on the inline SVG
This is what I was originally inspired to do, but ran into some roadblocks. Instead of writing CSS declarations for each animation, we can use the Sass loop produced by the generator. The loop targets a .loader class that’s already applied to the outputted SVG. So, once Sass is compiled to CSS, we get a nice spinning animation.
I’m still working on this
My favorite part of the generator is the custom shape option where you can add text, emojis, or any SVG element to the mix:
Custom text, emoji, and SVG
What I would like to do is add a third option for styles to have just one element where you get to work with your own SVG element. That way, there’s less to work with, while allowing for simpler outputs.
The challenge with this project is working with custom values for so many things, like duration, direction, distance, and degrees. Another challenge for me personally is becoming more familiar with Vue because I want to go back and clean up that messy code. That said, the project is open source, and pull requests are welcome! Feel free to send suggestions, feedback, or even Vue course recommendations, especially ones related to SVG or making generators.
This all started with a Sass loop that I read in a book. It isn’t the cleanest code in the world, but I’m left blown away by the power of SMIL animations. I highly recommend Sarah Soueidan’s guide for a deeper dive into what SMIL is capable of doing.
If you’re curious about the safety of SMIL, that is for good reason. There was a time when Chrome was going to entirely deprecated SMIL (see the opening note in MDN). But that deprecation has been suspended and hasn’t (seemingly) been talked about in a while.
Can I use SMIL?
This browser support data is from Caniuse, which has more detail. A number indicates that browser supports the feature at that version and up.
