events/2025-01-30-front-end-study-hall
Front End Study Hall #020 was an IndieWeb meetup on Zoom held on 2025-01-30.
Front End Study Hall #020
January 30, 2025
Participants
- Template:VinceAggrippino https://aggrippino.com
- Joe Crawford
- mandaris
- capjamesg
- Jeremy Cherfas
- Ross A. Baker
- Template:vanderwal
- gRegor Morrill
Notes
- Joe Crawford's background today is from 1997. A piece of web history involving a creative use of HTML frames: https://fray.com/hope/meeting/
- I asked on Bluesky and Mastodon:
- I am trying to find a very old example of HTML Frames being used in a creative way on a page. I feel like it replicated a stage play look and feel using the resizable attribute of <frameset> and <frame> -- curtains opening. Does anyone remember this old usage?
- I received a reply from Fray creator Derek Powazek with the link! He also alluded to Salon using the same technique and it being a kerfuffle in the early web design community
- I've been able to find evidence of the direct comparison in blogs including several blog archives.
- Thomas Vander Wal suggested archives for HotWired may include more detail if those are archived. It may have been discussed on Webmonkey or early Webmonster lists.
- I asked on Bluesky and Mastodon:
- Prior to wide adoption of tables and CSS Frames were often used to create designs. Their searchability and accessibility were always low, and once tables and scripting were available they fell away.
- More about frames:
- An overview of frames and other more modern layouts
- Jeff Veen had a historical write-up of Wired and HotWired layout and design with the mention of frames in 1997 - https://veen.com/jeff/archives/000903.html
Dark Mode
- Dark Mode in email clients! Solved by specifying not just a background color but a foreground color:
- With thanks to Joe, Kevin and btrem: https://www.jeremycherfas.net/blog/improved-accessibility
- Article about dark mode
https://css-tricks.com/come-to-the-light-dark-side/
- Vince uses Dark Mode all the time with the Dark Reader extension: https://darkreader.org/
Picture Element, srcset, media attribute
- The <picture> element: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/picture
- srcset? multiple <source> elements with media attributes to mimic @media queries
- Are CSS resets still relevant?
- An old favorite: https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/
- A new favorite: https://www.joshwcomeau.com/css/custom-css-reset/
- Less about /removing/ defaults, more about /evolving/ defaults
- Note that multiple images multiplies the work to assure that image paths are correct and puts an onus to check for the various media query points each time there are changes
- Reasonable HTML "is a single HTML document that contains a reasonably complete set of example HTML elements.": https://www.reasonable.work/html/
Issue with header
Updated HTML
<h1> <a href="https://mandarismoore.com/" title="Mandaris Home Page" style="display: inline-flex;outline: 1px solid red; /*! max-width: min-content; */padding-inline-end: 3em;"> <img src="/svg/UserIcons_Mandaris_02.svg" class="logo" alt="">Mandaris</a> </h1>
Changed CSS:
/* Element | https://mandarismoore.com/ */ header.site-header h1 a { display: inline-flex; outline: 1px solid red; padding-inline-end: 3em; }
/* thanks Vince for driving our CSS debugging; and all for discussing block, vs inline, vs inline-block elements and Manny for sharing his site! */
Elsewise
- gRegor Morrill: I enjoyed this recap video by Kevin Powell, "My best CSS tips from 2024" (not necessarily *new* CSS features): https://youtu.be/lUU2OAAg4Uw?si=kBqDl6bYYnFqW55v
Discussion, Design!
Design is intimidating, design for oneself even moreso!
- "The Joy of Incremental Design Improvements" - capjamesg
- Ross A. Baker made a mess, and is finding joy in decremental design. What can be removed, to build again?
- Joe mentioned, I think, Matt Webb's Interconnected blog, with soft color shifing - https://interconnected.org/home/
Finding what you want with your site
- Homer's crazy car is of course comedy, but also manages in its humor to express the truth of "featuritis" in a design and product context!
- Emily sometimes will start with font, or a set of https://coolors.co/
- Explore color combinations and save them to get at colors one likes
- Design is often subject to fleeting fancies, trends, "blingy"
- Start with a goal, it might be a feeling or mood you want to support, that can guide the decisions you make
- So much can be done with design, it's not easy, and it's very vulnerable to open oneself up to criticism
- Lots of variation - hard to do design
- As Manny noted, the aphorism is useful --
Comparison is the thief of joy
- One always wants to do quality assurance on sites, including for accessibility, Vince recently encountered the writings from Adrian Roselli and are well-worth perusing
Thanks all who joined and participated in then discussion
Front End Study Hall (FrESH) | |
---|---|
Find upcoming Front End Study Hall Events on events.indieweb.org/tag/frontend | |
2025 | 01-02 β’ 01-16 β’ 01-30 β’ |
2024 | 04-24 β’ 05-07 β’ 05-23 β’ 06-06 β’ 06-18 β’ 07-02 β’ 07-16 β’ 08-01 β’ 08-27 β’ 09-12 β’ 09-26 β’ 10-10 β’ 10-24 β’ 11-07 β’ 11-21 β’ 12-05 β’ 12-17 β’ |