Web Features That May Not Work As You’d Expect
July 23rd, 2021
As the web gets more and more capable, developers are able to make richer online experiences. There are times, however, where some new web capabilities may not work as you would expect in the interest of usability, security, and privacy. I have run into situations like this. Like lazy loading in HTML. It’s easy to…
Adding Shadows to SVG Icons With CSS and SVG Filters
June 11th, 2021
Why would we need to apply shadows to SVG? Shadows are a common design feature that can help elements, like icons, stand out. They could be persistent, or applied in different states (e.g. :hover, :focus, or :active) to indicate interaction to users. Shadows happen in real life, so they can be used on screens to…
Links on Accessibility
June 7th, 2021
Show/Hide password accessibility and password hints tutorial — Nicolas Steenhout goes deep on <input type=”password”> accessibility. For one thing, being able to toggle it to type=”text” should be possible, while announcing, politely, the change. But also, put the password hints (for choosing a password) before the input and programmatically connect them. And a bunch of…
Serverless Functions: The Secret to Ultra-Productive Front-End Teams
May 31st, 2021
Modern apps place high demands on front-end developers. Web apps require complex functionality, and the lion’s share of that work is falling to front-end devs: building modern, accessible user interfaces creating interactive elements and complex animations managing complex application state meta-programming: build scripts, transpilers, bundlers, linters, etc. reading from REST, GraphQL, and other APIs middle-tier…
To $ or Not to $: Displaying Terminal Code Snippets
May 27th, 2021
It’s very popular to put a $ on lines that are intended to be a command in code documentation that involves the terminal (i.e. the command line). Like this: $ brew install somepackage The point of that is that it mimics the prompt that you (may) see on your command line. Here’s mine: So the…
svg-loader: A Different Way to Work With External SVG
May 19th, 2021
SVGs are awesome: they are small, look sharp on any scale, and can be customized without creating a separate file. However, there is something I feel is missing in web standards today: a way to include them as an external file that also retains the format’s customization powers. For instance, let’s say you want to…
Using AI to help find answers to common skin conditions
May 18th, 2021
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to help clinicians care for patients and treat disease — from improving the screening process for breast cancer to helping detect tuberculosis more efficiently. When we combine these advances in AI with other technologies, like smartphone cameras, we can unlock new ways for people to stay better informed about…
I could build this during the weekend
May 11th, 2021
How many times have you heard that (or even uttered it under your own breath)? I know I’ve heard it in conversations. I also know I’ve wondered the same thing about a product or two — hey, the idea here is super simple, let’s get a couple of buddies together and make the same thing,…
Sending Large Files
April 29th, 2021
Despite fancy modern options for recording podcasts with guests, like Riverside.fm or Zencastr where guests don’t have to worry about recording their own audio, we haven’t made the leap to one of those yet. We have the guests record their own audio locally (typically Quicktime Player or Windows Voice Recorder) because that way our editor…
Text That Sometimes Turns to Emojis
April 22nd, 2021
There are some Unicode characters that some browsers just decide they are going to turn into emojis for you. I couldn’t tell you why exactly, but here’s what I see: Chrome on the left. Safari in the simulator on top and to the right. Those text Unicode characters (▶, ↩, and, ❤) show up as…