June 15, 2021 — When developing themes and plugins for WordPress, we need to test them in different environments. How can we create multiple testing sites on our computer, quickly and easily, without having to become a sysadmin? If our themes and plugins contain custom blocks, testing them for all different versions is imperative. At the very minimum, we need to worry about two versions of Gutenberg: the one shipped in WordPress core, and the one available as a standalone plugin. Read more…

June 15, 2021 — In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, we’re talking about image optimization. What steps should we follow for performant images in 2021? We talk to expert Addy Osmani to find out. Read more…

June 14, 2021 — Spoiler alert: tooltips, modals, tabs, carousels, and dropdown menus are some of the user interface components that require more than CSS. To ensure accessibility of your interface, JavaScript is a necessary addition to accomplish focus management, respond to keyboard events, and toggle ARIA attributes. Read more…

June 11, 2021 — Design often revolves around visuals, but the other senses deserve love too. In this article, we tune in to audio features that are making sites sing. Most of us have had the misfortune of crossing bad examples (auto-playing videos being a particularly egregious example) but audio can give web experiences a whole new dimension when applied well. What follows are some astounding sounds from the World Wide Web. Read more…

June 10, 2021 — We don’t need to write everything from scratch every single time. With boilerplates and starter kits, we can set up our projects faster, and get to work immediately. We’ve also just recently covered CSS auditing tools, CSS generators, accessible front-end components and VS code extensions — you might find them useful, too.  This collection is by no means complete, but rather a selection of things that the team at Smashing found useful and hope will make your day-to-day work more productive and efficient. Read more…

June 10, 2021 — Building a faster website can be a rocket task these days. There are so many things to consider, so it’s challenging to get everything right. Here are some less-known tools that might help you get there. Read more…

June 9, 2021 — What makes relational selector one of the most requested features and how are we, as developers, working around not having it? In this article, we’re going to check the early spec of the :has selector, and see how it should improve the CSS workflow once it’s released. Read more…

June 8, 2021 — It’s here! For the last year, we’ve been working with Addy Osmani on a new Smashing Book all around image optimization. And now it’s here. Meet “Image Optimization”, our deep-dive guide to understand how to deliver high-quality images on the web fast. 528 pages. From formats and compression to delivery and maintenance. Get the book right away! Read more…

June 7, 2021 — In this guide, Prince Chukwudire will show you how to build a simple geocoding app from scratch, using Vue.js and Mapbox. He’ll cover the process from building the front-end scaffolding up to building a geocoder to handle forward geocoding and reverse geocoding. To get the most out of this guide, you’ll need a basic understanding of JavaScript and Vue.js and how to make API calls. Read more…

June 4, 2021 — Modern browsers provide good support for JavaScript modules, but module bundlers such as webpack stay a critical part of the JavaScript toolchain. Module bundlers such as webpack, Parcel, Rollup and also Google’s Closure Compiler were written to create optimized bundles of your code for your end-user’s browser to download and execute. In this article, Nwani Victory will take a deep dive into what webpack is and how to use it in your development workflow. Read more…