As is usually the case, there are a ton of great tutorials and new libraries to talk about this week. My introduction, on the other hand, will be brief as I write this sitting beneath the Pitons on St. Lucia (notice I didn’t say sunny). Enjoy!
Tutorials
Joshua Clanton explains how you call and apply to invoke JavaScript functions and how this can be useful.
Invoking JavaScript Functions With ‘call’ and ‘apply’
Ariya Hidayat discusses how to optimizing your use of CSS3 to take advantage of GPU Compositing.
Optimizing CSS3 for GPU Compositing
Mary Lou explores how the expanding search bar on the CoDrops site was built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Expanding Search Bar Deconstructed
Johnny Simpson builds a CSS shredder animation using CSS 3D transforms, animations and the CSS clip property.
CSS Shredder: Making a Shredding Machine with CSS3
Alan Greenblatt tracks the browser support of CSS graphics properties that add features like clipping, masking and filters.
css-graphics
Brian Birtles explains the Web Animations spec, what it includes and why it is necessary.
Introducing Web Animations
John Allsop shows hot to emulate the translucency effect seen in iOS 7 using CSS3.
Creating iOS 7 effects with CSS3: translucency and transparency
Mary Lou shares some experimental modal window effects using CSS transitions and animations.
Nifty Modal Window Effects
Nicholas Zakas discusses why he believes eval(), while easily misused, is potentially useful and not dangerous.
eval() isn’t evil, just misunderstood
Libraries and Frameworks
Mária Jurčovičová shows step by step how to build JavaScript libraries using Grunt.js and a number of plugins.
Building a JavaScript Library with Grunt.js
Leon Revill walks through building a sample app in AngularJS that searches TV show premieres.
Building a Web App From Scratch in AngularJS
Christophe Coenraets rebuilds his employee directory sample application with Backbone.js and RequireJS.
Building Modular Web Applications with Backbone.js and RequireJS – Sample App
Clint Berry shows how you can use the Brackets Shell project to build desktop applications with HTML and JavaScript.
Build Desktop Apps With HTML Using Brackets Shell
Les James shows a responsive images solution where he makes Sass talk to JavaScript passing named media queries.
Making Sass talk to JavaScript with JSON
Guido Kessels covers some advanced unit testing topics in JavaScript using BusterJS.
Advanced Unit Testing Techniques in JavaScript
Mobile
Christophe Coenraets rebuilds the PhoneGap version of his employee directory sample app using Backbone.js, RequireJS & Topcoat.
Building Modular Mobile/PhoneGap Apps with Backbone.js, RequireJS & Topcoat – Sample App
New and Updated Libraries and Frameworks
helmsman is a Node package that helps make command line interfaces using git style subcommands executables.
helmsman
Sproute is a new commercial web framework similar to Meteor. Louis Stowasser shows how to build a Twitter-clone with it.
Build Your Own Twitter-Clone with Sproute
PhoneGap 2.9 is out and Shazron Abdullah explains what’s new in PhoneGap for iOS in this version.
What’s new in Cordova iOS 2.9.0
tracking.js allows you to do object tracking and track color markers in the browser via the user’s camera.
tracking.js
Goo.js offers a simplified drawing and event handling API for HTML5 canvas object.
Goo Demo
Tyson Matanich wrote a proof of concept polyfill to support element-based media queries.
Media Queries Are Not The Answer: Element Query Polyfill
bootstrap-wysihtml5 is a JavaScript plugin to create wysiwyg editors that use wysihtml5 and Twitter Bootstrap.
bootstrap-wysihtml5
Etc.
Dr. Axel Rauschmayer shows how to add a site search in Chrome using the metadata and even evaluate JavaScript in the search bar.
Searching websites and evaluating JavaScript via Chrome’s omnibox
DownDoc lets you write documents in Markdown, preview the output and save them directly to your Google Drive.
DownDoc
Brian Rinaldi is the founder of Flippin’ Awesome. Brian works as the Developer Content Manager at Telerik (though this site is not affiliated with his employer) focused on ensuring that the Developer Relations team creates top notch content for the web development community. Previously, Brian focused on publishing HTML, CSS and JavaScript developer content for the Adobe Developer Connection at Adobe.
Brian has published in a variety of technical publications over the years, has presented at numerous conferences and events and has served as a technical editor on a number of books.
You can read Brian’s blog archive with 9+ years of content at remotesynthesis.com (he still posts, infrequently). You can find a full list of Brian’s past publications and presentations. Follow Brian on Twitter @remotesynth.
