Issue 216

News

Issue 216

A bit of a shorter issue this week as I'm at W3C TPAC in Japan so am occupied with thinking and talking about the web platform rather than reading about it, so I have fewer resources to share.

I've just come from a CSS Working Group meeting where CSS Writing Modes Level 3 moved to Proposed Recommendation Status (PR), this is the status before a spec becomes a W3C Recommendation - you can read about spec levels here. Congratulations to editors fantasai and  Koji Ishii, as well as everyone else who has worked to get the spec to this point.

A small success for me was to get agreement to publish a new Working Draft of the Multicol spec. I've made a whole lot of edits to that spec over the past year, so it is definitely time to republish the spec, and hopefully get some feedback on the changes.

I head directly from here to Finch Front-End in Edinburgh, which has a fantastic line-up (and a jetlagged me with a new talk). There are still tickets available, go get one!

Rachel Andrew, CSS Layout News

New in Chrome 77  |  Web  |  Google Developers

Google are exposing the Largest Contentful Paint API in Chrome 77 so you can track the performance of the largest content area visible in the viewport, which gives a better idea of when you page is usable.

google.com

Learn

Under-Engineered Text Boxen | Adrian Roselli

Relevant to something I'm working on at the moment is this post from Adrian Roselli. Form fields remain a thorn in most of our sides, I appreciate the thorough explanation here.

adrianroselli.com

Two Browsers Walked Into a Scrollbar | Filament Group, Inc.

A look atthe scrollbar, and methods of styling it.

filamentgroup.com

Integrating Video and Web Content: Lessons in User Interface Design | Thomas Park

An interesting post about integrating video and content, discussing the use of media queries and sticky positioning along with lots of UX tips.

thomaspark.co

Animating a Hue around the Color Wheel with Houdini

Advertises itself as a Houdini tutorial, however also includes some very clear explanations of color, and color animation.

danielcwilson.com

Interesting

Beyond Browser Vendors

I've been pondering progress on the web platform, in the wake of Edge moving to Chromium, in terms of the fact we have lost one engine where progress can be made. Writing specs is one thing, but if no browser implements the feature, we don't get to use them in the real world. Brian writes about the work of Igalia, funded by Bloomberg on CSS Grid, and the possibilities of non-browser companies developing these features in our browsers.

bkardell.com