The number of Flux implementations available can feel overwhelming, but overall Jim Cowart finds it an encouraging development. Solid and successful patterns like Flux will, by their very nature, encourage multiple implementations. In this article, Jim will take a look at some of the key lessons he has learned about React and Flux. Whether you’re new to React and Flux, or going as far as building your own Flux implementation, Jim thinks you’ll not only enjoy this journey, but find some thought-provoking questions and wisdom you can apply in your own endeavors.
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There are various ways to approach responsive typography and consistent vertical rhythm, and they are not limited to my suggestion. However, Jonathan Suh finds that this works for him more times than not. Managing consistent, typographic rhythm isn’t easy, but when the type is responsive, things get even more difficult. Fortunately, Sass maps make responsive typography much more manageable. This is where Sass maps and loops are powerful: They’ve helped him manage z-index values, colors and, as you’ll see in this article, font sizes.
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In Pieces is an interactive exhibition of 30 of the world’s most endangered species. The experience is an informational reminder of the beauty we are in danger of losing every day, but it’s also a showcase of evolutionary distinction. Users are told the stories and struggles of these unique lifeforms, as well as invited to dive into numerical data, download wallpapers and even obtain a poster featuring the entire collection. In this article, Bryan James explores the inspiration for the project and aspects of how different parts were built, and he’ll dive into how you can use this greatly underrated line of CSS for your own projects.
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There is a gap between pure CSS layout and custom design elements created in software such as Photoshop or Illustrator. Sophisticated SVG filters give us more independence from third-party design tools and bridge this gap by enabling us to create visual styles directly in the browser.Wouldn’t it be great if we could style letters the same way we usually style text with CSS? In this article Dirk Weber will show you how SVG filters help you to create playful, decorative web typography.
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With CSS’ clip-path property you will begin to think outside the box, literally, and hexagons, stars and octagons will begin to take form on your web pages. Once you get your hands dirty with clip-path, there’s no end to the shapes you can generate, simply by tweaking a few values. In this article, Karen Menezes will provide demos referenced to an inline SVG, in order to gain additional support on Firefox. Generating a responsive SVG clipped shape is trivial once you have created a responsive shape with CSS’ clip-path. We’ll look at this in detail later.
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By inserting a single element in your markup, you can tell any web browser to render an interaction control, and you can completely modify that interaction – from a text field to a checkbox to a radio button – by simply changing a keyword. Now imagine a world where creating these interactions means also creating custom interaction controls, and you begin to realize how taken for granted inputs really are. That’s what the HTML 5.0 specification was intended to solve, by expanding the concept of the text input to allow for specific data types, such as numbers and email addresses, as well as rich interactions, such as task-specific on-screen keyboards and date- and color-pickers.
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The extend directive can produce undesirable side effects if it is not carefully implemented. Thankfully, there are many strategies for using extend effectively that can prevent these side effects and produce clean, organized CSS. Understanding how extend works and keeping the guidelines above in mind will enable you to use @extend to its full advantage — reducing CSS output and keeping relationships intact, no matter what exported selectors (classes, attributes, etc.) you use. Make wise use of both the @mixin and @extend directives — they’re meant to coexist in your well-organized style sheets.
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Because Foundation for Apps was only released at the end of 2014, it hasn’t yet seen widespread usage, so there are few good sources of information on using the framework. In this article, Stephen Saucier brings you a comprehensive guide to build a functional web app with Foundation for Apps from start to finish. The techniques detailed here are fundamental to building practically any kind of app for any client, and this tutorial also serves as a strong introduction to the wider world of AngularJS and single-page apps.
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Perhaps the only thing worse than a fire that could happen to the office of a web development company would be losing connectivity to the web. This is why Google Mail inserts a warning whenever you go offline. As noted in Marco Zehe’s 2008 blog post, Google was an early adopter of ARIA live regions. In this article, Heydon Pickering is going to create a script which tests whether the user is online or off and uses ARIA to warn screen reader users of the change in this status so they know whether it’s worth staying at their desk or giving up and going for a beer.
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Recently, with the creation of modern web frameworks such as AngularJS and Ember, we’ve seen a push to render on the client and only use a server for an API. We’re now seeing a possible return or, rather, more of a combination of both architectures happening. Web architecture definitely goes through cycles. We started out rendering everything on the server and shipping it down to the client. Then, JavaScript came along, and we started using it for simple page interactions. At some point, JavaScript grew up and we realized it could be used to build large applications that render all on the client and that use the server to retrieve data through an API.
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