Front-End Tools: My Favorite Finds of 2017

A Sliding Nightmare: Understanding the Range Input

::part and ::theme, an ::explainer

Monica Dinculescu on ::part and ::theme, two pseudo-elements that are very likely to gain traction and receive more attention in the new year. They're designed to help us create and style web components, as Monica explains:

The current new proposal is ::part and ::theme, a set of pseudo-elements that allow you to style inside a shadow tree, from outside of that shadow tree. Unlike :shadow and /deep/, they don’t allow you to style arbitrary elements inside a shadow tree: they only allow you to style elements that an author has tagged as being eligible for styling. They’ve already gone through the CSS working group and were blessed, and were brought up at TPAC at a Web Components session, so we’re confident they’re both the right approach and highly likely to be implemented as a spec by all browsers.

If the whole "shadow tree" phrase makes you panic as much as me then not to worry! Monica has already written an excellent piece that goes into great depth about web components and the Shadow DOM spec, too.

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::part and ::theme, an ::explainer is a post from CSS-Tricks

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Fragmented HTML5 Video

Further working mode changes at WHATWG

The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) announced that it has adopted a formal governance structure:

The WHATWG has operated successfully since 2004 with no formal governance structure, guided by a strong culture of pragmatism and collaboration. Although this has worked well for driving the web forward, we realized that we could get broader participation by being clear about what rights and responsibilities members of the community have. Concretely, this involves creating an IPR Policy and governance structure.

WHATWG was founded by folks at Apple, Mozilla and Opera. The new structure will be comprised of individuals from Apple, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla. The Big Four, you might say.

I find this interesting because we often think of the Web as a wild west where standards are always evolving and adopted at a different pace. This change largely keeps public contributions to the Living Standards in tact, but establishes a clearer line of communication between working groups and provides a path to appeal and resolve disputes over standards.

Living Standards are informed by input from contributors, driven by workstream participants, articulated by editors, and coordinated by the Steering Group. If necessary, controversies are resolved by the Steering Group with members appointed from the organizations that develop browser engines.

And, with representatives from leading browsers at the table, we may see more agreement with adoption. I'm speculating here, but it seems reasonable.

If you're like me and are fuzzy on the differences between WHATWG and W3C, Bruce Lawson has a pretty simple explanation. It still kinda blows my mind that they're both standards we often refer to but come from two completely different groups.

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Further working mode changes at WHATWG is a post from CSS-Tricks

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Refactoring Your Way to a Design System

Mina Markham on refactoring a large and complex codebase into an agile design system, slowly over time:

If you’re not lucky enough to be able to start a new design system from scratch, you can start small and work on a single feature or component. With each new project comes a new opportunity to flesh out a new part of the system, and another potential case study to secure buy-in and showcase its value. Make sure to carefully and thoroughly document each new portion of the system as it’s built. After a few projects, you’ll find yourself with a decent start to a design system.

As a side note, Mina’s point here also reminds me of an old blog post called "Things You Should Never Do" by Joel Spolsky where he talks about how all this work and all this code you feel you needs to be refactored is actually solving a problem. Deleting everything and starting from scratch is almost never a good idea:

When you throw away code and start from scratch, you are throwing away all that knowledge. All those collected bug fixes. Years of programming work.

I’m not entirely sure that Joel’s piece about programming fits snuggly with Mina’s point but I think it’s an interesting one to make nonetheless: new code doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s better.

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Refactoring Your Way to a Design System is a post from CSS-Tricks

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Mozzy Good Wishes to You & Yours!

Posted by FeliciaCrawford

As the long holiday weekend draws to a close and we prepare to welcome a brand-new year, we at Moz just want to thank you all for a wonderful, fulfilling year on the blog. Your colorful commentary, delightful debates, thrilling thumbs-up, and vivacious visits have made the past twelve months sparkle and shine (and with that, I'll bid the alliteration adieu).

Our "card" features a cameo from a little Moz Dog you may recognize: the inimitable Lettie Pickles!

At the Moz HQ, we practice a multitude of holiday traditions. Whether it's Mozzers gathering in the common room (affectionately named "Roger") to light candles on the menorah during Hanukkah, trading and stealing gifts for the company-wide White Elephant exchange (someone won a bonafide Commodore 64 this year!), or getting our boogie and our board gaming on at the Moz holiday party, we try to honor this special season with a healthy mix of reverence and good old-fashioned fun.

The folks who come to our blog for digital marketing advice hail from almost every remote corner of the world (we know; we looked at our analytics ;). This week, when things tend to slow down and it's just a little more difficult than usual to get anyone to reply to your emails, we'd love to invite you to share your own unique tales and traditions in the comments. What's your favorite way to celebrate, in the office and at home? What mishaps and magical moments alike filled your days, and what's your resolution for 2018? Let's take a little breather as we gear up for all the new projects and responsibilities awaiting us just around the corner and share with each other; after all, that's what being a community is all about! :)

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