~frontendfocus | Issue 640 - How should masonry layout work with CSS Grid? (17)

MarkdownDown: Convert Any Web Page to Clean Markdown with Images Downloaded — Just enter a URL and choose from optional settings to remove non-content elements, link vs. download for the images, and apply further instructions to customize the code via GPT-3.5.

Mastodon Embed Timeline Widget — Easily embed a Mastodon timeline on your site. No dependencies, no trackers, cross-browser, WCAG compliant and fully responsive. Demo here.

Help Invent CSS Grid Level 3, Aka “Masonry” Layout — Masonry style layouts (above) see content laid out like a brick/stone wall. It’s a popular pattern, but one that rapidly becomes difficult to get just right. Real-world feedback is now being sought from devs and designers on how CSS should handle such layouts. This article runs through the current proposal, the debate at the heart of things,...

The Frontend Developer/Engineer Handbook 2024 — An in-depth, detailed, and free guide to the current web development landscape. It's a superb resource (by way of Frontend Masters) for getting up to speed on everything from code editors, CSS, UX, UI, the command line, popular tools and frameworks, performance, accessibility, testing, AI, and much more. One to bookmark/share.

Upgrading jQuery: Working Towards a Healthy Web — Yes, jQuery is still pretty much everywhere, so considering its staying power here’s what work is being done to ensure jQuery users stay up to date. This online tool can tell you if the version you’re running is out of date.

▶  A Conversation with Una Kravets: The Rapid Evolution of CSS — An interview with Una, the Web UI DevRel lead at Google, discussing web development, the progression of CSS over the years, and how layout/style ideas end up a reality.

Detect JavaScript Support in CSS — A way to provide alternative CSS rules depending on whether or not JavaScript is available in the user’s browser. It can also help reduce flashes of unstyled content or undesirable layout shifts. There are a few gotchas to be aware of though.

HTML Attributes vs. DOM Properties — They’re completely different, but often coupled. Jake outlines the the difference, and why it matters.

Don’t Use the maxlength Attribute to Stop Users From Exceeding the Limit — “the maxlength attribute doesn’t improve UX, it degrades it”.

The F-Shape Pattern and How Users Read — When users consume your content they will be scrolling, scanning, and skipping around your page. Here’s what you need to know about typical reading behavior and design strategies you can consider to prevent potentially unwanted scanning patterns.

Long Alt — Keep your image alternative text brief, devoid of special characters, empty of URLs, and ideally in one language.

Quill 2.0: A Powerful Rich Text Editor for the Web — This is a major release for the popular open-source WYSIWYG editor, and represents a significant modernization of things. Here's the announcement post outlining what's new in 2.0 post, and the repo too. Not tried it before? There’s a playground.

Wedges: A Collection of UI Components for React — A well thought out, aesthetically pleasing set of UI and Tailwind CSS based components. You can also download a Figma file of them to use when mocking up layouts. GitHub repo.

The Ultimate CSS Shapes Collection — Single-element implementation. Lots to choose from, including some rather novel options. One click to copy the code!

Product for Engineers: A Newsletter Helping Flex Your Product Muscle — Subscribe for free to get curated advice on building great products and best practices of top startups from PostHog.

WorkOS, the modern identity platform for B2B SaaS — WorkOS provides easy-to-use APIs for authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning. It's a drop-in replacement for Auth0 and supports up to 1 million monthly active users for free.