David Darnes made a <code-pen> web component, which is a basic HTML/CSS/JS panel layout that renders them into an iframe (using the very cool <syntax-highlight> web component as well). Then it ate itself when Ariel Salminen put a <code-pen> in a <code-pen>. Then the universe collapsed upon itself when Rob Rhoades made a code pen…
A closer look at accordion icons, why split menus are harmful, and why it’s better not to have icons and text labels link to different actions. Plus, why the caret is the safest icon choice. You’ll find more useful guides and online workshops here on Smashing Magazine, so make sure to browse and explore. So…
It warms my old heart to hear Jason Santa Maria wax poetic about modern CSS: CSS has exploded! Flexbox, grid, many kinds of viewport units, variables, and on and on. So many things we used to patch in to extend CSS or turn to Javascript for are now just part of the spec. The ease…
Chris and Alex are talking this week about CodePen’s biggest release since the 2.0 drop. It’s live! We’ll be working on CodePen AI forever, since it’s a fast-changing technology that regularly adds new abilities. That sounds like a trite thing to say, but we lived it as we were building this. We started out playing…
Design systems thrive on consistency, so where does randomness fit in? Through playful demos of organic typography, bouncing letters, and splayed cards, Brecht De Ruyte shows how the new CSS random() function brings a little imperfection to the web without JavaScript libraries or preprocessor loops that generate hundreds of lines of static CSS. In design,…
One of my favorite kinds of writing is someone sharing something they are knowledgable about because they actively learned something over the years they have been doing it. Here’s some of those articles. The “build vs buy” conversion in business is fascinating to me. It feels like you should always be able to analyze it…
I went looking through my saved links the other day for posts that are actively someone liking something. Article like 5 things I love about Astro or Anatomy of my favorite API. I found suspiciously little of it, which makes me think there is suspiciously little of it being written, as I’m the type that…
What can digital transformation teach us about AI adoption? Paul Boag revisits his book Digital Adaptation to show how lessons from the past can help organizations navigate the challenges of AI today. The way I see most organizations roll out AI feels more like a farce than a strategy. If it were turned into a…
You can kinda smell a vibe-coded app these days. TypingSVG has that odor, but like… in a good way? An app like this absolutely should exist. Someone needed it, and how instead of it just being some little tool they’ve tucked away for themselves or thrown away, they tossed it up on some inexpensive hosting…
Dave has this classic idea for a Web Components Sommelier. Like many of Dave’s ideas, it’s equal parts joke and brilliance. The idea is a person with deep knowledge of an absolute ton of different Web Components who can suggest ones that do just the right thing in any situation. Like a wine sommelier who…