All Blog Posts
Browse the following posts, or view all tags.
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Creating a Fluid Type Scale with CSS Clamp
Fluid typography allows each font size in a modular scale to vary responsively between a min and max. Learn the math behind fluid typography and how to programmatically generate a fluid type scale with CSS clamp and Sass.
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Writing Better CSS
CSS has come a long way since the early days of web development. Learn how to write better CSS using modern strategies like the :is and :where pseudo-class functions, logical properties and values, clamp, gaps, and aspect-ratio.
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Keeping Focus in Place with Load-More Buttons
Load-more buttons are more accessible than infinite scrolling, but they also steal keyboard focus when new content loads in. We can fix this problem by manually focusing the first newly inserted result.
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Configuring Web Fonts in 11ty with Global Data
Rather than using static font-face declarations for web fonts, you can take advantage of global data in 11ty to create a single source of truth for fonts and reuse those values in your templates and CSS.
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Optimizing Images with the 11ty Image Plugin
While imagery can enrich your content, it can also slow down your site if it's not used responsibly. Learn how to use the official 11ty image plugin to create optimized and responsive images.
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Add Comments to a Static Site with Netlify Functions and the GitHub API
Comment systems are a pain to set up, but they don't have to be. With the GitHub Issues API and Netlify functions, you can create a custom comment system in just a few lines of server-side JavaScript.
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Managing Complex State in React with useReducer
React's useState hook works well for managing simple state. But once your component starts to grow, useReducer may be a better fit for managing state.
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NFTs Are a Problem
While NFTs are being hailed as the future of digital ownership, they're also the source of many problems. NFTs are artificially scarce, make it easier to commit fraud, undermine the intellectual property rights of content creators, and encourage consumptive mining practices.
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Accommodating the Longest Text in a Label with CSS Grid
Suppose a label renders strings of different lengths, but you want it to always reserve space for the longest text to prevent layout shifts. You can do this using a CSS grid trick.
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Represent State with HTML Attributes, Not Class Names
Developers often use class names to represent a change in a component's state, but this leads to redundant (and sometimes inaccessible) markup. Instead, we should use native HTML attributes to represent state and style those discrete states with the CSS attribute selector.
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Passing Object Arguments to Liquid Shortcodes in 11ty
Currently, 11ty doesn't allow you to pass object arguments to shortcodes in Liquid. As a temporary workaround, you can assemble and parse a JSON string to pass along to the shortcode as an argument.
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Dynamically Importing Components with React.lazy
Not all static imports are immediately needed, and unnecessary imports can be costly. With React.lazy, you can dynamically import components at run time to reduce the size of your static bundle.
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Automate Netlify Redirects in 11ty
Tired of listing all of your Netlify redirects by hand? Generate them programmatically with a bit of 11ty templating magic!
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Awaiting Multiple Promises with Promise.all
Often, you need to wait for multiple independent async tasks to finish before resuming where your code left off. Learn how to use JavaScript's Promise.all method to await multiple async operations, such as batch file uploads.
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Cleaner Type Predicates with Derived Types
In TypeScript, type predicates allow you to narrow down an abstract type to a more concrete type with a simple assertion. Together with derived types, they can greatly reduce repetition in your code.
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The 62.5% Font Size Trick
Once you get used to thinking in rems for font sizing, you'll find that it's easy to express familiar powers of two. But for other values, you may find it helpful to use the 62.5% font size trick.
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Don't Use a Fixed Line Height
In typography, the ideal line height for text depends on a variety of factors, including font size, line length, and font family.
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11ty: The Good, the Bad, and the... Possum?
An in-depth review of 11ty, an extensible static site generator written in Node that supports a variety of template languages.
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Premature Optimization: Code First, Optimize Later
Don't optimize your code just because you have an inkling that it's slow. Focus on writing readable, well-tested, and well-documented code; optimize it if you need to.
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React, Iframes, and a Back-Navigation Bug
If an iframe re-renders in React, it can interfere with back navigation in your browser. The solution? Force the iframe to unmount with a unique key.
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Make Atomic Git Commits
It can be tempting to lump unrelated code changes into a single commit, but this makes it difficult to debug and time travel in Git. Prefer to write atomic commits that have a single responsibility.