One thing I’ve learned over the last year is to deal with changes in explainers and specs and that naming things is hard. In this update on Invokers, I will cover the new syntax and the new name: Invoker Commands. Once again giving you some control over interaction with HTML from opening dialog elements to creating custom counter buttons and video controls.

Another year, another CSS Day. I’m always happy to return to Amsterdam for this occasion, It’s one of the things I look forward to every year. So naturally, I’m happy that iO still allowed me to go there with my training budget, and the least I could do, is write a summary of this event on the tech_hub.

The CSS anchoring API is something that I’ve been following for at least a year now, and I’m happy to see that the first level is fully specced. Even though there are still some shortcomings that I’ll cover in this article as well, the available things look pretty solid and will help us a lot in creating some complex layout structures. Besides that, they are very much needed for the future of the HTML Popover API and stylable selects.

It’s easy to get lost in a sea of CSS frameworks and libraries, each promising easier styling and smoother layouts. But amidst this abundance, the modern CSS features we have today offer simpler and more flexible approaches without the added dependencies or abstractions. In this article, I demonstrate four CSS utility classes (plus a bonus) using techniques that allow them to be used practically anywhere you need a particular layout — be it Grid or Flexbox — with configurable options.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could click on a button to open a modal with just HTML? How about those file input elements? Imagine that creating a custom play button for video controls would be an easy thing to do. How about custom counter buttons for a number input? This is where the idea of invokers comes in. It’s currently available behind a flag to play around with and it’s definitely one of the most exciting advances in HTML to look out for.

A few weeks ago, a cool little package was delivered to my home. When I opened it I couldn’t stop smiling, it was a Google Developer Expert certificate to hang on my wall. But why did this make me so happy? Well,... it’s all about being self-taught and believing that communities are important. In this (non-technical) article, I’d like to share some thoughts about communities, what they gave me, what I hope to return, and what scares me.

While experimenting with CSS, you sometimes discover a technique you want to do more of. This is one of those discoveries for me... I love how we can now animate clip paths on scroll with CSS. From animating an image into a star to creating Polaroid-like images on scroll. In this article, I’d like to demo some techniques we can use to create these interesting effects using clip paths, @property, and even container units to create visually pleasing scroll-driven animations.

While learning about web components a few months ago, I wanted to create my first (useless) little component as a package on NPM. In this article a little tutorial on how I created my first basic web component with LIT, Typescript, using an easy setup with Vite. I will be sharing how to do the setup, some of the ideas behind it, and some of the gotchas.

The year 2024 might be a big one for web components and I for one am excited about this. Truth be told - a few months ago - I barely knew anything about them as I thought they were just this niche thing floating around on the web. But a lot of buzz is being created. So I wanted to learn more about them. I can now proudly say I published my first (useless) web component on npm - a Valentines special - for-love element.