Today’s Readings

A friend recently asked if one could send push notifications without an app. I said “No” of course, because you can’t. Then he sent me a link he found online, for Roost, which claimed it could. Hmpf. Okay, download script, beautify, dig around, find reference to new easyXDM.Socket… Look-up easyXDM, be appropriately impressed… Through a couple very clever workarounds, you can now do push-notifications, originating from your website. Awesome!

All the videos from ffconf2014!

50 Hidden iOS Features. These are always so good, and then I immediately forget them…

JS scope is something that most JS devs are at least slightly familiar with, but I think it is another of those topics that can never be revisited too often. In that spirit, here is a really nice, easy-to-understand article about JS scope. Thanks to for the link.

And speaking of JS, some say it is never too early to get kids interested (or at least help them be not afraid of) coding. In that spirit, I present JavaScript for Kids. And while that title (and the writing) is certainly geared toward children, just like any language book (like the German language on my bedside table), that simply means it is simply written, so anyone that you know, at any age, would likely find it quite easy to understand and follow along!

And once the kids have the hang of all that, let’s throw them in the deep-end, with all the ins-and-outs of this! :-)

Okay, just one more for the JS fans out there (come on, it’s for the kids!): Constructors as Functions. You know you live it…

Wildcard sounds like an interesting concept, I especially like the reference to “an alternative RSS Reade[r]”. Too bad it requires iOS 8 or higher… Anyone try it and want to share their thoughts?

All the glamour of the picture element is around serving different image crops based on the device’s screen-size. But, as one JSBin user points out, it is also a dead-simple way to try to help your users with a webp image

Do you know how to build a website?

Every relative of every web developer

Also not the theme of the 24 Ways article What It Takes to Build a Website, by . Instead, Drew focuses on the actual prep work, planning, and thinking, before getting into the actual coding.

So… SVG Morpheus is pretty sweet… Though, with a name like that, I would have expected the demo to include a blue pill morphing into a red pill, but nevermind…

I love when JS and physics combine… I can still remember the first time I encountered that, at a SXSW conference, watching a then-unknown-to-me Seb Lee-Delisle… It changed how I thought about JS… Anyhow, the article that made me wax so nostalgic, Creating Animations and Interactions with Physical Models, should really start with a disclaimer to stop reading it on a desk-/laptop and grab your phone, because the first two times I started reading it, I was thoroughly under-impressed. Then, realizing he mentioned iOS pretty early-on, I grabbed my iPhone. Das ist besser

Sticking with JS and physics for a minute, let’s play with a few more transitions

Okay, just one more physics-like piece, this time regarding making animation look real, with CSS Core Animation Skills: Gravity, Squash and Stretch, from .

An online SVG editor, with localStorage capabilities… Bwah… Now if only I had the inspiration and know-how to create really, really slick SVGs all by m’lonesome… :-/

I read some time ago about Specificity Graph, but for some reason it just didn’t quite click, exactly how to use the info to better my CSS… This article from helped…

CSS Shapes. That’s still something from the future, right? Well, maybe not, especially if you don’t mind adding Adobe’s polyfill for the couple places you’d still need it… Exciting news, if you ask me! So, let’s learn how to use shapes & masks!

A nice collection of Git “emergency tips”.

Automating Web Page Rendering Performance. Sounds great, can’t wait to try it!

MixItUp is a pretty slick sort & filter jQuery plugin. Be sure to play with the various settings options, and be sure yo note the logo, a nice subtle touch… :-)

I like the look of Chartist, the idea of animated charts is quite fun. But I hesitate as soon as I see the browser support, especially for foreignObject, which seems like one of the only ways to get advanced text in SVG…

And finally, want to get a seriously birds-eye view of what your visitors are doing? Then just record them! Wow.

Happy reading,
Atg

2 Responses to Today’s Readings

  1. Stephen says:

    Kyle Simpson’s recent book, “this and Object Prototypes,” also covers this scoping pretty well.

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