CategoryTechniques

March 8, 2024 — In Part 1 of this series, Temani Afif explored different CSS techniques to create tooltip shapes. The main challenge was to rely on a single element and create optimized code that could easily be controlled using CSS variables to update the size, shape, and position of the tail. In this second part, you are going explore more shapes. Read more…

March 1, 2024 — Tooltips are a very common pattern used in CSS for years. There are a lot of ways to approach tooltips in CSS, though some evoke headaches with all the magic numbers they require. In this article, Temani Afif presents modern techniques to create tooltips with the smallest amount of markup and the greatest amount of flexibility. Read more…

February 22, 2024 — It’s well-established that the web faces wide-ranging usability and performance issues, from user-hostile UI patterns and twisted search results to sluggish performance and battery-draining bloat. In this article, Frederik examines one small-but-significant aspect where developers take the reins: Painting pixels on the screen. Read more…

February 9, 2024 — A radar chart — also commonly called a spider chart — is yet another way to visualize data and make connections. Radar charts are inherently geometric, making them both a perfect fit and fun to make with CSS, thanks to the polygon() function. Read along as Preethi Sam demonstrates the process and sprinkles it with a pinch of JavaScript to make a handy, reusable component. Read more…

January 26, 2024 — Language models have shown impressive capabilities. But that doesn’t mean they’re without faults, as anyone who has witnessed a ChatGPT “hallucination” can attest. In this article, Joas Pambou diagnoses the symptoms that cause hallucinations and explains not only what RAG is but also different approaches for using it to solve language model limitations. Read more…

January 25, 2024 — Taking inspiration from shadows, author Yair Even Or creates the same sort of thing, only with a blurring effect in place of the shadow. Read along for a step-by-step explanation of how it comes together using a combination of masks, gradients, and the good ol’ backdrop-filter property. Read more…

January 16, 2024 — The CSS border-image property is one of those properties you undoubtedly know exists but may not have ever reached for. In this article, Temani Afif demonstrates different approaches for using border-image to create clever decorative accents and shapes. Read more…

January 11, 2024 — Useful front-end tools for CSS and JavaScript developers that were most popular last year and will help you speed up your development workflow. Let’s dive in! Read more…

January 2, 2024 — The View Transitions API is a new — but game-changing — feature that allows us to do the types of reactive state-based UI and page transitions that have traditionally been exclusive to JavaScript frameworks. In the second half of this mini two-part series, Adrian Bece expands on the demos from the first article to demonstrate how the View Transitions API can be used to transition not just elements between two states but the transition between full views and pages in single-page and multi-page applications. Read more…

December 22, 2023 — The View Transitions API is a new — but game-changing — feature that allows us to do the types of reactive state-based UI and page transitions that have traditionally been exclusive to JavaScript frameworks. In the first part of this mini two-part series, Adrian Bece thoroughly explains why we need the API and demonstrates its basic usage. Read more…