In this article, I’ll be explaining how I’ve used Gatsby Functions and the Stripe API to enable secure “Pay what you want” contributions that help fund my open-source project MDX Embed. Note: MDX Embed allows you to easily embed popular third-party media content such as YouTube videos, Tweets, Instagram posts, Egghead lessons, Spotify, TikTok and […]
READ MOREAs a chemist by trade, I received a Master’s degree in Quality Management and Quality Control from Bordeaux University. My initial career was in the wine industry, ensuring the quality of the laboratory’s operations and the analyses that came out of it. As a side note, the last question of my job interview as quality […]
READ MOREMost businesses today rely on simple brochure websites for their online presence. These tend to be static websites with a few pages giving core information about the business and details on products and services offered. Although these are relatively cheap and less complicated to develop than a site that offers more advanced user experiences, a […]
READ MOREPer the W3C spec, “a pseudo-element represents an element not directly present in the document tree”. They have been around since version 1 of the CSS specification, when ::first-letter and ::first-line were introduced. The popular ::before and ::after pseudo-elements were added in version 2 — these represent content that does not exist in the source […]
READ MORENeed to design something? It can be tempting to start with a computer-based tool, e.g. wireframing software like Balsamiq, or design tools like Photoshop or Figma. These have their place, but I would recommend stepping back and starting with the humble pen and paper. Sketching by hand can feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable to those who […]
READ MOREThere’s no middle ground between simple transitions and complex animations. You’re either fine with what CSS Transitions and Animations provide or you suddenly need all the power you can get. Web Animations API gives you a lot of tools to work with animations. But you need to know how to handle them. This article will […]
READ MOREA lot of web design talk concerns itself with what goes on around content. Page speed, design systems, search engine optimization, frameworks, accessibility — the list goes on and on. This gives us at Smashing Magazine plenty to write about, which is great, though it’s worth reminding ourselves what it’s all in service of. In […]
READ MOREIf you’ve ever used Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) with Next.js, you may have found yourself sending stale data to the client. This occurs when you are revalidating the page on the server. For some websites this works, but for others (such as Hack Club’s Scrapbook, a site built by @lachlanjc that I help maintain), the […]
READ MOREIn the real world, content often differs vastly from the neat, perfectly fitting content presented in designs. Added to that, on the modern web, users have an ever-increasing range of options for how they access the sites we build. In this article, we’ll walk through the process of taking a seemingly simple design for a […]
READ MOREYou might know it already, but perhaps not yet: we regularly run friendly online workshops around front-end and design. We have a couple of workshops coming up soon, and we thought that, you know, you might want to join in as well. All workshops sessions are broken down into 2.5h-segments across days, so you always […]
READ MOREBrowser developer tools keep evolving, with new and improved features added all the time. It’s hard to keep track, especially when using more than one browser. With that much on offer, it is not surprising that we feel overwhelmed and use the features we already know instead of keeping up with what’s new. It’s a […]
READ MOREHello, and welcome to the final installment of this three-part series on the new HTTP/3 and QUIC protocols! If after the previous two parts — HTTP/3 history and core concepts and HTTP/3 performance features — you’re convinced that starting to use the new protocols is a good idea (and you should be!), then this final […]
READ MOREAs is the case with many other developers, the reports over the last few years of the huge energy requirements of the web have prompted me to take a look at my own websites and see what I can do to minimize their impact. This piece will cover some of my experiences in doing this, […]
READ MOREBecause this industry moves so quickly, learning new skills is a regular thing for most of us. Over the last little while, I’ve been able to collect links to several interactive coding tools and apps that can help you supplement your skills in different areas of web development. Whatever you want to learn from CSS […]
READ MOREEven today, the magic, wicked realm of SVG Filter Effects is largely uncharted territory. The art of SVG filtering is still surrounded by an aura of alchemy: you have to bravely dive into a dark world of inconsistencies, your dedication will repeatedly be tested by buggy implementations and nerve-wracking side effects, and you must learn […]
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