Printing music with CSS grid
Laying out sheet music with CSS grid—sounds extreme until you see it abstracted into a web component.
We need fluid and responsive music rendering for the web!
Link tags: styling
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How would you build Wordle with just HTML and CSS? | Scott Jehl, Web Designer/Developer
This is a great thought exercise in progressive enhancement …that Scott then turns into a real exercise!
Can you feel the rhythm‽ · 13 March 2024
Adam makes a very good point here: the term “vertical rhythm” is quite chauvanistic, unconciously defaulting to top-to-bottom writing modes; the term “logical rhythm” is more universal (and scalable).
What is Utility-First CSS?: HeydonWorks
Heydon does a very good job of explaining why throwing away the power of selectors makes no sense.
Utility-first detractors complain a lot about how verbose this is and, consequently, how ugly. And it is indeed. But you’d forgive it that if it actually solved a problem, which it doesn’t. It is unequivocally an inferior way of making things which are alike look alike, as you should. It is and can only be useful for reproducing inconsistent design, wherein all those repeated values would instead differ.
He’s also right on the nose in explaining why something as awful at Tailwind could get so popular:
But CSS isn’t new, it’s only good. And in this backwards, bullshit-optimized economy of garbage and nonsense, good isn’t bad enough.
Bill Oddie taught me how to make web sites - Hicks.design
I remember Jon telling me this lovely story when we first met in person. I love the idea that we had already met in a style sheet.
I also love the idea of hosting your own little internet archive—that Bill Oddie site still looks pretty great to me!
It’s a lot like an embarrassing family photo, but I’m owning it!
Offloading JavaScript With Custom Properties: HeydonWorks
With classes, we can send CSS static values but with custom properties we can send dynamic ones, which is a major shift in the way we can style state. This is something that has been true for some time—and is extremely well supported—but sometimes it takes solving a small real-world problem to make you appreciate the value of it.
I think we still haven’t come to fully appreciate the superpower of custom properties: dynamic values that are shared between CSS and JavaScript.
drab
This looks like a handy collection of HTML web components for common interface patterns.
drab does not use the shadow DOM, so you can style content within these elements as usual with CSS.
12 Modern CSS One-Line Upgrades | Modern CSS Solutions
I love how straightforward these bits of CSS are—time to rip out some of those old complicated hacks and workarounds!
Light-DOM-Only Web Components are Sweet – Frontend Masters Boost
The main reason I’m so hot on Light DOM is that I find the styling story of Web Components using Shadow DOM annoying.
Shadow DOM is for hiding your shame
This is an excellent step-by-step walkthrough by Tess of creating a web component, with real thought given to what should be in the HTML (which will act as a fallback) and what’s better generated in the Shadow DOM (like buttons for interactivity).
This perfectly mirrors something Chris was saying in a recent episode of the Shop Talk Show:
I think of the image comparison one. That’s a classic example in Web component. What’s inside is just two IMG tags. That’s it. When it fails, you don’t want a weird div with little arrows on it being rendered on the page. That’s not doing anything because it has failed to load the JavaScript.
Blinded By the Light DOM – Eric’s Archived Thoughts
You just take some normal HTML markup, wrap it with a custom element, and then write some JS to add capabilities which you can then style with regular CSS! Everything’s of the Light Side of the Web. No need to pierce the Vale of Shadows or whatever.
I think Eric’s approach here should be the default for most web components: you probably don’t need to mess around with the shadow DOM, and you should definitely be wrapping your web component around existing HTML instead of witing opening and closing tags with nothing in between.
Augment, don’t replace.
Progressively Enhanced Form Validation, Part 1: HTML and CSS – Cloud Four
A great reminder of just how much you can do with modern markup and styles when it comes to form validation. The :user-invalid and :user-valid pseudo-classes are particularly handy!
CSS Text balancing with text-wrap:balance - Ahmad Shadeed
Ahmad runs through some of the scenarios where text-wrap: balance could be handy.
Even though it’s not well-supported yet in browsers, there’s no reason not to start adding it to sites now; it’s classic progressive enhancement.
The perfect link - The A11Y Collective
How do we write, design, and code a link that works for everyone on every device? Let’s dive into the world of creating the perfect link, without making a pig’s breakfast of it.
Preventing too-short final lines of blocks | Clagnut by Richard Rutter
Check out the demo that Rich has put together to go with Amelia’s proposed syntax.
Some simple ways to make content look good - Set Studio
This is a terrific walkthrough from Andy showing how smart fundamentals in your CSS can give you a beautiful readable document without much work.
An end to typographic widows on the web | Clagnut by Richard Rutter
Rich explains what text-wrap:balance does …and what it doesn’t.
The Web Needs a Native .visually-hidden
I agree with the reasoning here—a new display value would be ideal.
Line heights in CSS work better with ratios | Andy Bell
There’s a broader point here about declarative design:
Setting very specific values may feel like you’re in more control, but you’re actually rescinding control by introducing fragility in the form of overly-specific CSS.