Post pobrano z: compute cuter

Get that desk more cuter, fam. Amy (@sailorhg) has this perfectly cute minisite with assorted desktop backgrounds, fonts, editor themes, keyboard stuff, and other accessories. These rainbow cables are great.

And speaking of fonts, we’re still plucking away at this microsite for coding fonts and it’s ripe for contribution if anyone is into it.

Direct Link to Article — Permalink

The post compute cuter appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

Post pobrano z: compute cuter

Get that desk more cuter, fam. Amy (@sailorhg) has this perfectly cute minisite with assorted desktop backgrounds, fonts, editor themes, keyboard stuff, and other accessories. These rainbow cables are great.

And speaking of fonts, we’re still plucking away at this microsite for coding fonts and it’s ripe for contribution if anyone is into it.

Direct Link to Article — Permalink

The post compute cuter appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

Post pobrano z: Little Things on My Personal Site

I updated my personal website the other day. Always a fun project since it’s one of the few where it’s 100% just me. It’s my own personal playground with no other goal than making the site represent me to have a little fun. It’s not a complete re-write, just some new paint.

I thought I’d document little bits of it here just to hone in on some of the bits of trickery in the spirit of learning through sharing.

Hoefler Fonts

I think the Inkwell family is super cool. I like mix and matching not just the weights but the serif and sans-serif and caps vs not.

I used Inkwell in the last design as well, but I was worried that it was a little too jokey for blog post body copy. My writing is extremely casual, but not always, and Inkwell is way too jovial for serious topics. I went with Ideal Sans for body copy last time, but the pairing with Inkwell felt a little off.

This time I went with Whitney for general body copy, which is still pretty lighthearted, but works when the copy is more straight toned.

Blogroll

If you’re going to zebra-stripe a table, you’d do something like…

tr:nth-child(even) {
  background-color: var(--color-1);
}
tr:nth-child(odd) {
  background-color: var(--color-2);
}

What if you wanted to rotate four colors though? It’s still :nth-child trickery, selecting every four, and then offsetting. Here, I’ll do it with list items in Sass (the nesting is nice, not having to repeat the selector):

li {
  &:nth-child(4n) a {
    color: $blue;
  }
  &:nth-child(4n + 1) a {
    color: $yellow;
  }
  &:nth-child(4n + 2) a {
    color: $red;
  }
  &:nth-child(4n + 3) a {
    color: $purple;
  }
}

That’s what I did to build the colorized blogroll:

Note the Sass used above… I used Sass because it was already in use on the project. All I had to do was open CodeKit and the processing was ready-to-go.

Oh, and blogrolls are cool again.

Chill YouTube

I used this click-to-load-YouTube-(at all) technique which is still extremely clever. Having an <iframe> that behaves just like a YouTube embed would but only loading a simple static image (rather than heaps and heaps of resources) is great for performance and behaves essentially the same as a normal YouTube embed does.

<iframe
  width="560"
  height="315"
  src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y8Wp3dafaMQ"
  srcdoc="<style>*{padding:0;margin:0;overflow:hidden}html,body{height:100%}img,span{position:absolute;width:100%;top:0;bottom:0;margin:auto}span{height:1.5em;text-align:center;font:48px/1.5 sans-serif;color:white;text-shadow:0 0 0.5em black}</style><a href=https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y8Wp3dafaMQ?autoplay=1><img src=https://img.youtube.com/vi/Y8Wp3dafaMQ/hqdefault.jpg alt='Video The Dark Knight Rises: What Went Wrong? – Wisecrack Edition'><span>▶</span></a>"
  frameborder="0"
  allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"
  allowfullscreen
  title="The Dark Knight Rises: What Went Wrong? – Wisecrack Edition"
></iframe>

Custom Post Types everywhere

I’m a big fan of giving myself structured data to work with. In WordPress-land, that often means Custom Post Types paired with something like the Advanced Custom Fields plugin for just the right data needed for the job.

Then I can loop over stuff and output it however I want. This isn’t that fancy, but it opens up whatever future doors I want to a lot easier.

Build your own bio

There is nothing fancy about how this works:

I literally made 18 <div> elements (3 lengths * 2 styles * 3 code types = 18) and swap between with a bit of JavaScript that calculates a class string based on the current choices, selects that class, and unhides it while hiding the rest.

$(".bio-choices input").on("change", function () {
  var lengthClass = ".bio-" + $("input[name=length]:checked").attr("id");
  var styleClass = ".bio-" + $("input[name=style]:checked").attr("id");
  var codeClass = ".bio-" + $("input[name=code]:checked").attr("id");
  var selector = lengthClass + styleClass + codeClass;

  $(".bio").hide();
  $(selector).show();
});

jQuery! That’s what was already on the site, and the site also uses the jQuery version of FitVids for responsive videos — so I figured I’d just leave it all be.

If I was going to re-write these bits of the site, I’d probably rip out jQuery and use this for FitVids. Then I’d find a way to only have three bios (maybe six if I can’t find a nice way to handle first vs. third person with word swaps) and then get the rest by automatically converting the formats somehow (maybe some cloud function if I had to).

ztext.js

I used ztext for the header! It’s this kinda stuff that makes the web feel extra webby to me. I’m not sure I’d do something with quite so much movement on a site like CSS-Tricks (because people visit it more often and the time-on-site is higher). But for a site that people might land on once in a blue moon, it has the right amount of cheerful levity, I think.

Background SVG

I was stoked to see the SVG Backgrounds site get an upgrade lately. I was playing around in there and was like YES, I’m doing this.

I went with a background-attachment: fixed look, which I think I like. I also added the slideout footer effect on desktop, but I’m less sold that it’s working here. It’s more fun when the background changes, and that doesn’t happen here. I’ll probably either change the background of the footer, or rip the effect out.

Filter trick for links

Some of the different sections on the site use a different primary highlight color, and I’m having the links in those sections follow that color. That might be questionable (perhaps all links should be blue) but, so far, I think it makes decent sense (they still have hover and focus styles). When you have a variety of colors and styles for interactive elements though, it often means that you have to create special alternate styles for hover and focus. That could mean crafting bespoke color alterations for each color. Not the end of the world, but I really like this little trick for interactive styles that ends up with a consistent look across all colors:

a:focus, .button:focus,
a:hover, .button:hover {
  filter: brightness(120%);
}

Anyway! This was just a couple hours of paint on this site. Mostly because blogrolls were the CodePen Challenge that week. But I can never touch a site I haven’t in a while and just do one thing. I get sucked in and gotta do more!

The post Little Things on My Personal Site appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

Post pobrano z: Little Things on My Personal Site

I updated my personal website the other day. Always a fun project since it’s one of the few where it’s 100% just me. It’s my own personal playground with no other goal than making the site represent me to have a little fun. It’s not a complete re-write, just some new paint.

I thought I’d document little bits of it here just to hone in on some of the bits of trickery in the spirit of learning through sharing.

Hoefler Fonts

I think the Inkwell family is super cool. I like mix and matching not just the weights but the serif and sans-serif and caps vs not.

I used Inkwell in the last design as well, but I was worried that it was a little too jokey for blog post body copy. My writing is extremely casual, but not always, and Inkwell is way too jovial for serious topics. I went with Ideal Sans for body copy last time, but the pairing with Inkwell felt a little off.

This time I went with Whitney for general body copy, which is still pretty lighthearted, but works when the copy is more straight toned.

Blogroll

If you’re going to zebra-stripe a table, you’d do something like…

tr:nth-child(even) {
  background-color: var(--color-1);
}
tr:nth-child(odd) {
  background-color: var(--color-2);
}

What if you wanted to rotate four colors though? It’s still :nth-child trickery, selecting every four, and then offsetting. Here, I’ll do it with list items in Sass (the nesting is nice, not having to repeat the selector):

li {
  &:nth-child(4n) a {
    color: $blue;
  }
  &:nth-child(4n + 1) a {
    color: $yellow;
  }
  &:nth-child(4n + 2) a {
    color: $red;
  }
  &:nth-child(4n + 3) a {
    color: $purple;
  }
}

That’s what I did to build the colorized blogroll:

Note the Sass used above… I used Sass because it was already in use on the project. All I had to do was open CodeKit and the processing was ready-to-go.

Oh, and blogrolls are cool again.

Chill YouTube

I used this click-to-load-YouTube-(at all) technique which is still extremely clever. Having an <iframe> that behaves just like a YouTube embed would but only loading a simple static image (rather than heaps and heaps of resources) is great for performance and behaves essentially the same as a normal YouTube embed does.

<iframe
  width="560"
  height="315"
  src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y8Wp3dafaMQ"
  srcdoc="<style>*{padding:0;margin:0;overflow:hidden}html,body{height:100%}img,span{position:absolute;width:100%;top:0;bottom:0;margin:auto}span{height:1.5em;text-align:center;font:48px/1.5 sans-serif;color:white;text-shadow:0 0 0.5em black}</style><a href=https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y8Wp3dafaMQ?autoplay=1><img src=https://img.youtube.com/vi/Y8Wp3dafaMQ/hqdefault.jpg alt='Video The Dark Knight Rises: What Went Wrong? – Wisecrack Edition'><span>▶</span></a>"
  frameborder="0"
  allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"
  allowfullscreen
  title="The Dark Knight Rises: What Went Wrong? – Wisecrack Edition"
></iframe>

Custom Post Types everywhere

I’m a big fan of giving myself structured data to work with. In WordPress-land, that often means Custom Post Types paired with something like the Advanced Custom Fields plugin for just the right data needed for the job.

Then I can loop over stuff and output it however I want. This isn’t that fancy, but it opens up whatever future doors I want to a lot easier.

Build your own bio

There is nothing fancy about how this works:

I literally made 18 <div> elements (3 lengths * 2 styles * 3 code types = 18) and swap between with a bit of JavaScript that calculates a class string based on the current choices, selects that class, and unhides it while hiding the rest.

$(".bio-choices input").on("change", function () {
  var lengthClass = ".bio-" + $("input[name=length]:checked").attr("id");
  var styleClass = ".bio-" + $("input[name=style]:checked").attr("id");
  var codeClass = ".bio-" + $("input[name=code]:checked").attr("id");
  var selector = lengthClass + styleClass + codeClass;

  $(".bio").hide();
  $(selector).show();
});

jQuery! That’s what was already on the site, and the site also uses the jQuery version of FitVids for responsive videos — so I figured I’d just leave it all be.

If I was going to re-write these bits of the site, I’d probably rip out jQuery and use this for FitVids. Then I’d find a way to only have three bios (maybe six if I can’t find a nice way to handle first vs. third person with word swaps) and then get the rest by automatically converting the formats somehow (maybe some cloud function if I had to).

ztext.js

I used ztext for the header! It’s this kinda stuff that makes the web feel extra webby to me. I’m not sure I’d do something with quite so much movement on a site like CSS-Tricks (because people visit it more often and the time-on-site is higher). But for a site that people might land on once in a blue moon, it has the right amount of cheerful levity, I think.

Background SVG

I was stoked to see the SVG Backgrounds site get an upgrade lately. I was playing around in there and was like YES, I’m doing this.

I went with a background-attachment: fixed look, which I think I like. I also added the slideout footer effect on desktop, but I’m less sold that it’s working here. It’s more fun when the background changes, and that doesn’t happen here. I’ll probably either change the background of the footer, or rip the effect out.

Filter trick for links

Some of the different sections on the site use a different primary highlight color, and I’m having the links in those sections follow that color. That might be questionable (perhaps all links should be blue) but, so far, I think it makes decent sense (they still have hover and focus styles). When you have a variety of colors and styles for interactive elements though, it often means that you have to create special alternate styles for hover and focus. That could mean crafting bespoke color alterations for each color. Not the end of the world, but I really like this little trick for interactive styles that ends up with a consistent look across all colors:

a:focus, .button:focus,
a:hover, .button:hover {
  filter: brightness(120%);
}

Anyway! This was just a couple hours of paint on this site. Mostly because blogrolls were the CodePen Challenge that week. But I can never touch a site I haven’t in a while and just do one thing. I get sucked in and gotta do more!

The post Little Things on My Personal Site appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

Post pobrano z: Gray Burst

I made this neat little gray burst thing. It’s nothing particularly special, especially compared to the amazing creativity on CodePen, but I figured I could document some of the things happening in it for learning reasons.

It’s SVG

SVG has <line x1 y1 x2 y2>, so I figured it would be easy to use for this burst look. The x1 y1 is always the middle, and the x2 y2 are randomly generated. The mental math for placing lines is pretty easy since it’s using viewBox="0 0 100 100". You might even prefer -50 -50 100 100 so that the coordinate 0 0 is in the middle.

Random numbers

const getRandomInt = (min, max) => {
  min = Math.ceil(min);
  max = Math.floor(max);
  return Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min + 1)) + min;
};

It’s nice to have a function like that available for generate art. I use it not just for the line positioning but also the stroke width and opacity on the grays.

I’ve used that function so many times it makes me think native JavaScript should have a helper math function that is that clear.

Generating HTML with template literals is so easy

This is very readable to me:

let newLines;
for (let i = 0; i < NUM_LINES; i++) {
  newLines += `
  <line 
    x1="50"
    y1="50"
    x2="${getRandomInt(10, 90)}"
    y2="${getRandomInt(10, 90)}"
    stroke="rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.${getRandomInt(0, 25)})"
    stroke-linecap="round"
    stroke-width="${getRandomInt(1, 2)}"
  />`;
}

svg.insertAdjacentHTML("afterbegin", newLines);

Interactivity in the form of click-to-regenerate

If there is a single function to kick off drawing the artwork, click-to-regenerate is as easy as:

doArt();

window.addEventListener("click", doArt);

Rounding

I find it far more pleasing with stroke-linecap="round". It’s nice we can do that with stroke endings in SVG.

The coordinates of the lines don’t move — it’s just a CSS transform

I just popped this on the lines:

line {
  transform-origin: center;
  animation: do 4s infinite alternate;
}
line:nth-child(6n) {
  animation-delay: -1s;
}
line:nth-child(6n + 1) {
  animation-delay: -2s;
}
line:nth-child(6n + 2) {
  animation-delay: -3s;
}
line:nth-child(6n + 3) {
  animation-delay: -4s;
}
line:nth-child(6n + 4) {
  animation-delay: -5s;
}

@keyframes do {
  100% {
    transform: scale(0.69);
  }
}

It might look like the lines are only getting longers/shorter, but really it’s the whole line that is shrinking with scale(). You just barely notice the thinning of the lines since they are so much longer than wide.

Notice the negative animation delays. That’s to stagger out the animations so they feel a bit random, but still have them all start at the same time.

What else could be done?

• Colorization could be cool. Even pleasing, perhaps?
• I like the idea of grouping aesthetics. As in, if you make all the strokes randomized between 1-10, it feels almost too random, but if it randomized between groups of 1-2, 2-4, or 8-10, the aesthetics feel more considered. Likewise with colorization — entirely random colors are too random. It would be more interesting to see randomization within stricter parameters.
• More movement. Rotation? Movement around the page? More bursts?
• Most of all, being able to play with more parameters right on the demo itself is always fun. dat.GUI is always cool for that.

The post Gray Burst appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

Post pobrano z: Gray Burst

I made this neat little gray burst thing. It’s nothing particularly special, especially compared to the amazing creativity on CodePen, but I figured I could document some of the things happening in it for learning reasons.

It’s SVG

SVG has <line x1 y1 x2 y2>, so I figured it would be easy to use for this burst look. The x1 y1 is always the middle, and the x2 y2 are randomly generated. The mental math for placing lines is pretty easy since it’s using viewBox="0 0 100 100". You might even prefer -50 -50 100 100 so that the coordinate 0 0 is in the middle.

Random numbers

const getRandomInt = (min, max) => {
  min = Math.ceil(min);
  max = Math.floor(max);
  return Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min + 1)) + min;
};

It’s nice to have a function like that available for generate art. I use it not just for the line positioning but also the stroke width and opacity on the grays.

I’ve used that function so many times it makes me think native JavaScript should have a helper math function that is that clear.

Generating HTML with template literals is so easy

This is very readable to me:

let newLines;
for (let i = 0; i < NUM_LINES; i++) {
  newLines += `
  <line 
    x1="50"
    y1="50"
    x2="${getRandomInt(10, 90)}"
    y2="${getRandomInt(10, 90)}"
    stroke="rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.${getRandomInt(0, 25)})"
    stroke-linecap="round"
    stroke-width="${getRandomInt(1, 2)}"
  />`;
}

svg.insertAdjacentHTML("afterbegin", newLines);

Interactivity in the form of click-to-regenerate

If there is a single function to kick off drawing the artwork, click-to-regenerate is as easy as:

doArt();

window.addEventListener("click", doArt);

Rounding

I find it far more pleasing with stroke-linecap="round". It’s nice we can do that with stroke endings in SVG.

The coordinates of the lines don’t move — it’s just a CSS transform

I just popped this on the lines:

line {
  transform-origin: center;
  animation: do 4s infinite alternate;
}
line:nth-child(6n) {
  animation-delay: -1s;
}
line:nth-child(6n + 1) {
  animation-delay: -2s;
}
line:nth-child(6n + 2) {
  animation-delay: -3s;
}
line:nth-child(6n + 3) {
  animation-delay: -4s;
}
line:nth-child(6n + 4) {
  animation-delay: -5s;
}

@keyframes do {
  100% {
    transform: scale(0.69);
  }
}

It might look like the lines are only getting longers/shorter, but really it’s the whole line that is shrinking with scale(). You just barely notice the thinning of the lines since they are so much longer than wide.

Notice the negative animation delays. That’s to stagger out the animations so they feel a bit random, but still have them all start at the same time.

What else could be done?

• Colorization could be cool. Even pleasing, perhaps?
• I like the idea of grouping aesthetics. As in, if you make all the strokes randomized between 1-10, it feels almost too random, but if it randomized between groups of 1-2, 2-4, or 8-10, the aesthetics feel more considered. Likewise with colorization — entirely random colors are too random. It would be more interesting to see randomization within stricter parameters.
• More movement. Rotation? Movement around the page? More bursts?
• Most of all, being able to play with more parameters right on the demo itself is always fun. dat.GUI is always cool for that.

The post Gray Burst appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.