CSS frameworks have a tendency to be dismissed by many CSS authors; code bloat and non-semantic class names are usually at the top of the list of reasons why. Even without ever using one, I shared the same opinion, but that might have changed after trying a few of them out while doing some research…… Continue reading Are CSS frameworks evil?
My thoughts on LESS
I’ve started using LESS a few months ago on a few projects. LESS allows you to extend the way you write CSS, letting you use variables, nested selectors, operations and mixins. It sounds great — and it is great — but there are a few things that can make it work against you. These are…… Continue reading My thoughts on LESS
Books: “HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions”
The second book I’m reviewing is “HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions”, by web standardistas Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson. What is the book about? The book provides the reader with a foundation in how to markup and style a web site — the right way. In the authors’ own words this book is “a…… Continue reading Books: “HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions”
The little known font-size-adjust CSS3 property
Ever wanted to use fallback fonts on your CSS with different aspect ratios without them looking huge (or tiny)? The sparkling new CSS3 font-size-adjust property could do just that, maybe. What does font-size-adjust do? First, let me warn you: you will need to use Firefox to view the examples on this page properly. Yes, not…… Continue reading The little known font-size-adjust CSS3 property
A quick note about the :empty pseudo-class
I’m in love with the simplicity that CSS3 selectors can bring to our stylesheets. Here’s a brief explanation of one of my favourites: the :empty pseudo-class. What is the :empty pseudo-class Here is the definition taken from the W3C Selectors Level 3 specification: The :empty pseudo-class represents an element that has no children at all.…… Continue reading A quick note about the :empty pseudo-class
Do designers need a personal style?
A post by Darren Hoyt caught my eye the other day (among the hundreds of unread posts on my RSS reader…) where he asked whether designers needed a personal style or not. I wrote up a quick comment at the time, but I feel the question deserves a little more discussion — specially because no-one…… Continue reading Do designers need a personal style?
Clients aren’t stupid
The first time I came across the Clients From Hell website I laughed and sympathised with the poor designers that had sent those quotes in. I’m not laughing now though. Just an example The website mentioned above is just an example of something we tend to do frequently: make the client sound stupid, like he…… Continue reading Clients aren’t stupid
Quitting Project 52
A few weeks ago I mentioned I had signed up for Project 52 — an effort to produce one article per week. I’ve found that it’s not going as I expected; it’s not that I don’t want to write the content, but the schedule of one post per week is just not working for me.…… Continue reading Quitting Project 52
Book Review: “CSS Mastery — 2nd Edition”
I’m frequently confronted with the question of “which CSS books would you recommend?” and CSS Mastery is always at the top of the list. Here’s the audio review I did for the Boagworld podcast. The audio Listen! Transcript If you’d rather read, here’s the transcript of the review: Hi, my name is Yaili and I’ll…… Continue reading Book Review: “CSS Mastery — 2nd Edition”
WordPress: flexible pages lists with the extended page list plugin
WordPress is quite versatile and easy to use, but it seems to fail in some features that should be present at its core, like the ability to list pages’ content easier. Here’s an explanation of how to use a little plugin I found recently, and that doesn’t seem to be that widely known or documented.…… Continue reading WordPress: flexible pages lists with the extended page list plugin