Today’s Readings

Here is a great interactive SVG Filters demonstration, complete with copy/paste code samples. Granted, aside from sepia and maybe one or two others that could be appropriate for portfolio sites or something, most of these filters are not very practical, but you just never know…

And I hesitate to share these SVG clipPath examples, because I am afraid someone would actually implement them on a live site, and that would absolutely be a horrible user experience, but I felt I had to share them because the tech is so impressive… :-/ So, please, enjoy them and be inspired by them as a demonstration of possibilities, but never actually put something like this on a live site…

svg.connectable.js is “A JavaScript library for connecting SVG things”; Very useful, very impressive, and quite a pain to do on your own!

px2svg “Converts raster images to SVG, using color-run optimization”; Ok, maybe not so commonly useful, but still pretty darned impressive, and would certainly be a pain to do on your own!

And I am certainly no expert (or anywhere even slightly close to that!) when it comes to PhotoShop, but I am still duly impressed with the ability to use Adobe Extract within Photoshop (and Creative Cloud) to export assets from a PSD and create multiple variations (sizes, resolution, etc.) in a single workflow!

Awesome, tiny two-way binding library from . Less than 2k compressed, supported by IE9+, and only a few intentional limitations to keep things small and simply. Love it!

An impressively-detailed article on, IMO, one of WordPress’ strongest, yet simplest, advanced features: Custom Page Templates. Strong; because you can literally create a complete different page layout and design by simply creating a new template; and simple, because to make it work all you have to do is name the PHP file properly. There are a lot of other hooks and whistles discussed in the article.

While we’re beefing-up your WordPress skills, let’s have a look identifying, and then fixing, slow database queries in WordPress.

Sticking with CSS Tricks for a sec, here’s a nice method for responsively-realigning page elements without using floats, or even media queries, by adding just a tiny bit of Flexbox

Sticking with CSS for a sec, presents 5 things every web designer needs to know about CSS. Which contains 6 things… :-)

Well, the term Isomorphic JavaScript has been around long enough, don’t you think? `bout time for a change, don’t you think??

Speaking of [whatever we’re calling JavaScript now], How to Become a Great JavaScript Developer sure doesn’t sound like very much fun, but I’ll bet it will help… Now, what JS library can I use to add more hours to the week??

And speaking of ECMAScript, if, like me, you’ve been mostly ignoring ES6 because, well, the compatibility table looks like this, but, like me, you’re starting to have this searing, gnawing, scraping feeling crawling up from the depths of your midriff because you fear you are slowly falling behind the times, then maybe this ES6 in Depth series will be just right for you (and me)!

And finally, “It has been over 3,000 days since we left Earth. We’re now almost 3 billion miles away from home. Out here, where the sun is distant and faint, is a place no one has ever seen before: Pluto, and its system of moons; the farthest worlds ever to be explored by human kind.” This is the HD-version of the promo for the July 14, 2015 Plutonian arrival of NASA’s New Horizons, “the fastest spacecraft ever created.” Open the link on the big screen, draw the blinds, turn the sound up as loud as your neighbors can stand, and enjoy… :-)

Happy reading,
Atg

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