An entry-level, but pretty thorough, walk-through of basic JS animation.
And just in case your animation has any text in it, here’s how to fix for those jagged edges you might see.
Or do we simply need a better way to handle animations altogether?
Or do we already have one??
Mobile web development. What a blast, huh? I’ve said before that it’s akin to the bad-old days of IE vs. Netscape, except there are like 1000s of IEs and Netscapes, each just slightly more sucky than the last… And touch events are a big part of that. This article discusses the current four main methods that devices use to deal with touch events, and the new fifth method that’s coming from Chrome…
Ok, show of hands: How many are totally into, and up-to-snuff with, web components? (My hand is down, by the way.) Ryan Seddon offers this intro-level presentation.
Yesterday a co-worker asked me if I had heard of the MotoPress Content Editor for WordPress. I admitted I had not, but did look into it. Impressive, but typically from WYSIWYGs, tons of extra mark-up and inline CSS, but also better at responsive than I expected (and the inline CSS isn’t evil, but adds mark-up for the user to download, and makes consistency from page-to-page really hard). Then this morning, reading through my backlog of links, I tripped across 10 Fantastic Drag and Drop Page Builders for WordPress Worth Checking Outยท I love synchronicity…
And yesterday another co-worker asked my about live editing JS code, and if it was easy to do in Chrome DevTools. I said “yes, but you have to set-up Workspaces… maybe just use the Console, ” which seemed like it could work. Then this morning I tripped across fb-flo, which makes a compelling case for itself, especially when you scroll down and read the comparison chart.
I have to admit, I vomited in my mouth just a little when I read WinJS: the Windows Library for JavaScript… But then I had to remind myself that MS has grown a lot lately (or is at least trying to), so maybe this deserved a chance. Upon further investigation, it appears to be a framework for building Windows apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If you’re interested in that.
Or you could use something like Assets, which “is a cross-browser compatible, 508 compliant and responsive framework that can be used to kick-start your web project.” I was quite surprised by the .gov suffix in that URL, and after scrolling to the bottom found that Assets is “[a] federal government website managed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services” Huh. Like.
Ever dug into some code, seen a line you didn’t recognize and thought “WTF did that come from?” Of course you have. And now GitCommitMsg for Sublime will tell you just that!
Haven’t heard much on the performance-front lately, but here is enough info on memory profiling from Google to make up for it!
And beyond that, here are several possibly lesser-known JS debugging techniques (the meat starts at about 4:00).
I love the concept of the scroll-up bar! And you can learn how to implement your very own, but then you have to call it a smart fixed header… ;-)
Everybody knows Ctrl+/Command+C & Ctrl+/Command+V, but did you know Ctrl+Shift+J or Shift+Option+Command+up arrow?? You are going to love these Windows keyboard shortcuts and Mac keyboard shortcuts!
Got @media queries? Most of us do. How do you group yours: near the alternative statements for that element, or all @media queries grouped together in one place? Either way, there’s a good chance you have duplicate @media queries in your CSS. Well the Grunt combine-media-queries plugin is here to help!
Grouping related classes in your markup. Hmm, an interesting idea, and one that I was really surprised to see is valid… I don’t think I’ve ever worked on a project where something this extreme was needed, but I can certainly imagine a large, distributed project benefiting from this. If nothing else, just interesting to know you can…
In my head (and actually, in an email Draft to myself, too), I’ve been trying to figure out the most efficient workflow for me. I work on a Mac at home, but a PC at work. Ideally I would use the same apps and processes in both places. I have a few starter ideas and just need the time to play with them. Now here’s another: Webflow, Edge Reflow, Macaw.
Accessibility usually gets left behind on most projects, or at the very least partially implemented, and I think most would make it even less of a concern for mobile projects. But that would be a big mistake.
Native, Hybrid or Web App: which is best? Well, as with most things, there is no simple answer. Get to know your audience before you make a rash decision.
Just the other day I was excited to see Chrome supporting picture but lamenting that I couldn’t find a WP plugin that allowed me to easily make use of it. Well, here’s one. Wish it used picture instead of picturefill, but I think that could be easily modified.
So OOJS: easy-peasy, right? Not really, but Axel Rauschmayer is here to try to help explain it…
Need a date (from PHP, not some real person, that’s a different website)? Hate scrolling through pages like this to try to piece together the pieces you need to get the format you want? This online tool is here to help.
And finally, two big news stories from the world of private space travel!
- Elon Musk and SpaceX say their Dragon V2 space machine can blast off with seven passengers and then land anywhere in the world, and
- Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic now have FAA approval for commercial flights with their SpaceShipTwospace!
Pretty exciting times for science and space geeks!
Happy reading,
Atg