Best of JavaScript, HTML & CSS – Week of May 19, 2014
The modern web is always changing, and this article is more than two years old.
This was a extremely busy week and, despite the length of this list, I honestly had to make a lot of tough decisions on what to include to keep it even this long. This week also featured a bunch of mobile-focused posts – and in case you haven’t heard, Holly Schinsky and I are collaborating with Peter Cooper (of Cooper Press which publishes JavaScript Weekly, HTML5 Weekly and an empire of Weeklies) to release a new newsletter, Mobile Web Weekly. It’s another great way to keep up with articles and tutorials about the mobile web.
Tutorials
Typography inside CSS 2-D transforms often looks jagged or misplaced, but Zoltan Hawryluk shows techniques to fix it.
Fixing Typography Inside of CSS 2-D Transforms
What is the Ambient Light API, where is it supported and how can you use it? Aurelio De Rosa gives you the details.
Introduction to the Ambient Light API
A style guide by Nicolas Bevacqua covering how he thinks the CSS of an application should be modeled.
CSS: The Good Parts
A series of really slick effects that can be used for article headers.
Inspiration for Article Intro Effects
All numbers in JavaScript are floating points, so Dr. Axel Rauschmayer discusses how to check if a value is an integer.
Checking whether a value is an integer in JavaScript
Libraries and Frameworks
Vittorio Zaccaria shows how to create dynamic CSS rules that respond to changes in values on your page using the DynCSS library.
Dynamic CSS with DynCSS
Mykyta Semenistyi covers the basics of building a Grunt plugin and what you can learn from some existing plugins.
Building Your First Grunt Plugin
Rey Bango takes a look at the untitled-element template in Polymer which simplifies deployment and reuse.
Sharing Polymer Components: Part 1
Elliot Bonneville walks through the basics of setting up and building an application using Node.js and MongoDB.
An Introduction To Node.js And MongoDB
Patrick Catanzariti covers other, more advanced features in the PebbleKit JavaScript framework.
Advanced Pebble Watch Configuration
Matthieu Larcher explains what deferred objects are in the DoCSSa architecture and how to use them.
How to Handle Deferred Objects in DoCSSa
Mobile
Rob Lauer walks through the PhoneGap core plugins to know which ones your application needs to function properly.
Which Core PhoneGap/Cordova Plugins Do I Need?
Holly Schinsky shows how to use the Masonry grid layout system to build “brick-like” layouts similar to Pinterest.
Sample Masonry Layout in a Mobile App (Cordova/AngularJS/Ionic)
TJ VanToll explains how these 5 techniques for improving accessibility on mobile web apps improve the experience for all visitors.
Mobile And Accessibility: Why You Should Care And What You Can Do About It
See how to automatically set up deployment targets for CI with PhoneGap and Node.js from Ezo Saleh.
Adjusting the iOS deployment target with Cordova Hooks & NodeJS
Raymond Camden explains how to force a portrait mode app to landscape for certain activities like watching videos.
PhoneGap Tip: Temporarily changing orientation for video in a portrait only application
Etc.
The first part of the Web Animations spec has landed in Chrome 36 with element.animate() letting you create efficient JavaScript animations.
Web Animations – element.animate() is now in Chrome 36
Despite some controversy, CSS Regions is officially removed from Chrome.
CSS Regions no longer available in Chrome 35
