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Modern CSS Layouts: You Might Not Need A Framework For That

Smashing Magazine

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.

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Invoking elements by using only HTML: A first look at invokers

Open UI logo with text invokers below it

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.

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Why I care about a Google Developer Expert certificate and Web communities

Google Developer Experts logo

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.

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Animating clip paths on scroll with @property in CSS

A polaroid like frame holding an image, with a rotate and scroll icon next to it

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.

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A Valentine's Day special: A web component to show hearts on your website

Multicolored hearts randomly placed on a black background, yellow, red, blue and green

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.

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Getting into web components - an intro

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.

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Going beyond pixels and (r)ems in CSS

iO tech_hub

There are a lot of CSS units available at the moment and we mostly still rely on pixels and (r)ems for our sizing and fonts. I say it’s time to do a little freshening up. In this mini-series I will be going around all the current length units in CSS with practical examples.

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Taking a closer look at @property in CSS

Browser support for @property nears completion, a great time to delve into some technical aspects of this CSS feature. While I've experimented with @property in demo settings before, I’ve never used it in a production environment. With the upcoming full browser support, let’s take a look at the inner workings and uncover some of the benefits.

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Happy holidays and a popping start of 2024!

Fireworks above skyline made with CSS

This year has been a crazy ride, from my first appearances in public speaking to becoming a Google Developer Expert and speaking in Berlin. It’s time to reflect a little on the past year, write a little recap and have some time with family and friends to kick-start the year of 2024.

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CSS Scroll Snapping Aligned With Global Page Layout: A Full-Width Slider Case Study

Smashing Magazine

Have you run into a situation where you need the padding of one element to align with the padding of another element? It’s a common debacle, especially when a page layout is set with global padding? In this article I demonstrate that issue with a full-width slider component that breaks out of the main page container using a couple of techniques to keep it visually aligned with other elements on the page.

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