Back in 2010, Chris Coyier wrote an article on using jQuery to implement an AJAX-powered content updater, so that a user could view multiple pages without a page refresh. It was cool, well thought out, and thought-provoking, for me at least. I got to wondering “could you do something similar with CSS”. Well, no, you can’t do AJAX with CSS. But you can do something that looks kind of similar, using CSS’s :target pseudo-class.
In CSS, some properties just seem sexier than others, and get most of the coverage. Articles talking about new CSS3 properties like border-radius, box-shadow, and transition are a dime a dozen. Other properties, however, seem to get swept under the proverbial rug. When was the last time you read something on the intricacies of the color tag? That’s a bit of a shame, because sometimes a property with a lot of potential can get unfairly neglected. I happen to think that the subject of this little rant – the cursor property – is one such unfairly forgotten feature.
(more…)
Well, it’s December, so the season of yearly wrap-ups has begun. One of the first pieces to cross my path was A List Apart‘s “What I learned About the Web in 2011“, a collection of short (1-3 paragraph) thoughts by various members of the web community. It’s a nice read, and covers a lot of ground, ranging from standards to what constitutes a book in these Kindle/Nook/Kobo saturated days. My favorite was probably Jon Tan’s “We Who Are Web Designers”, and his article of the same name he linked to. It’s a nice little manifesto of the field, and definitely worth a read. That being said, I think that the big issue of the year was mobile, and the development of responsive design. The List Apart article has plenty of thoughts on those issues, but here are mine.
(more…)
Just thought I would let you all know that I’ve released my first jQuery plugin, called Patternizer. It uses the <canvas> API to generate one of a number of different patterns, and then render it as a background image for the target element(s). Each pattern is quite customizable, allowing for rapid prototyping of pages. I discuss the possible uses of the plugin (and some caveats) on the plugin’s homepage.
Hope you all like it!
Just a quick note to inform any who haven’t yet heard, jQuery 1.7 has been released. It doesn’t look like a major change, but the .on() and .off() event handler methods look interesting, and I like the change they’ve made to the toggle animations.
The latest edition of A List Apart has come out, and one of the articles, Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design, is a particularly stimulating read. Articles that discuss how to do cool things are pretty common, but ones that discuss if we should do them? They’re rather rarer. Thankfully this article gives us a chance to plumb these less-explored depths.
Just a quick note for you. If you’re into web app development, this might be an interesting read. It’s on using JavaScript to make pages fullscreen, hiding the browser chrome and making your page or app act more like a native application. I especially like the video example, and I think that this is where it will start off being implemented. The possibilities, however, are much more varied. They also, however, come with some considerations you must take into account
After writing my last post, I got to thinking. What, exactly, would my ideal web stat site offer? After some cogitating, I’ve realized there are two main things that I would love to see: correlated statistics, and niche statistics.
(more…)
Knowing your audience is vital for any rhetorical endeavor. Ideally, you should be using a service like Google Analytics to track your users behavior. In addition to knowing things like browser use and resolution, you can also see things like where people are coming into your site and where they’re leaving from, and where your traffic is actually coming from. This helps you find places where your site might not be working as well as it should be.
Sometimes, however, this isn’t really an option. Maybe you’re just getting started with a site, and don’t have any users to analyze (yet). Or maybe you’re designing a template to sell or give away. Then, the user base might vary from installation to installation. One would hope that the people using the template would start using analytic software and tweak the site accordingly. This isn’t something you can count on, however, and in any event, if you’re putting something “out there” for the public to use, it should work right out of the box. In that case, you probably want to use some kind of statistics site.
(more…)
Just wanted to give an additional plug to the latest post by Chris Coyier over at CSS-Tricks. In one of my first posts, I said that one of the most important things to know was what you don’t actually know, and how to appropriately deal with those unknowns. Well, Chris has gathered a whole bunch of them up in a post entitled (appropriately enough) What We Don’t Know. The great thing about it is that it not only tells what we don’t know, it also gives a quick overview of what we do (or at least should be doing) about it. It’s a quick read, but it’s got quite a bit of good stuff in it. Go read it, if you haven’t already. Now.