Published in ITNEXT·Nov 22, 2022Member-onlyHow Web Apps Became Decoys To Get You To Install Native AppsThe web is now an irrelevant alternative and we must do better You know that popcorn price list at the cinema where the large bucket is only slightly more expensive than the medium size one? That medium size is only a decoy to get you to buy the large one. …Web Development4 min readWeb Development4 min read
Published in ITNEXT·Nov 16, 2022Member-onlyThe Hidden Power of Custom States For Web ComponentsA crucial step in the evolution of Custom Elements In my previous articles “Web Components Can Now Be Native Form Elements” and “Native Form Validation Of Web Components”, I wrote about the ElementInternals property that enables Custom Elements to be associated with a form. This interface also enables developers to…Web Development6 min readWeb Development6 min read
Published in ITNEXT·Sep 14, 2022Member-onlyNative Form Validation Of Web ComponentsA thorough guide to easy, native form validation In my previous article “Web Components Can Now Be Native Form Elements” I explained how the ElementInternals object can be used to make Web Components participate in forms just like any other native form element. In this article I will explain how…Web Components14 min readWeb Components14 min read
Published in JavaScript in Plain English·Aug 10, 2022Member-onlyWeb Components Can Now Be Native Form ElementsHere’s the complete guide to customised form controls — Custom Form Controls One area in which developers have always wanted to customize elements is forms. Historically, it has often been hard to style form controls to give them the look and feel you want. The styling options are often limited and to this day, form controls like date and color pickers are…Java Script7 min readJava Script7 min read
Published in ITNEXT·Jul 21, 2022Member-onlyEverything You Always Wanted To Know About Web Components (But Were Afraid To Ask)Here’s what you need to know How well do you know Web Components? What would you like to know about Web Components? Here are the answers to the most common questions I get asked frequently. Can Web Components work without JavaScript? Yes, Web Components can be rendered without JavaScript through Declarative Shadow DOM. Normally, a Shadow…Web Components6 min readWeb Components6 min read
Published in ITNEXT·Feb 2, 2022Member-onlyHidden gems inside your browser, hiding in plain sight.Mind-blowing browser features that are still underused. Your browser can do some pretty awesome things that you probably didn’t know about. I work with browsers every day and I’m still amazed at some of the stuff I find. Sometimes, I discover features that I thought were only possible in native…Web Development6 min readWeb Development6 min read
Published in JavaScript in Plain English·Nov 17, 2020Member-onlySmart Styling Of Web ComponentsHow to leverage state-based styling the smart way — One of the killer features of Web Components is true encapsulation of styling through Shadow DOM. This means that the internal CSS of a Web Component can be completely isolated from the surrounding document without the need for a particular naming convention. All styling defined inside the component is for…Java Script7 min readJava Script7 min read
Published in ITNEXT·Oct 7, 2020Member-onlyYour Single-Page App Is Now A PolyfillYou simply can’t beat the platform Why do we build single-page apps? Two main reasons really. We want our web apps to feel “instant”, without any ugly blank screens in between pages that remind us our app is not really like an app. Blank screens make for a bad user-experience…Front End Development7 min readFront End Development7 min read
Published in The Startup·Sep 28, 2020Member-onlyThe Failed Criticism of Web ComponentsWhy Lea Verou’s criticism of Web Components is misdirected Here’s my response to Lea Verou’s article “The failed promise of Web Components” that was published last Thursday. I was pointed to the article by someone on Twitter and first thought I was pointed to the article “The broken promise of…Java Script4 min readJava Script4 min read
Published in ITNEXT·Sep 1, 2020Member-onlyHow To Extend A Native HTML ElementWhen standard HTML is not enough Ever since the days of XML we have tried to extend HTML with our own tags. The standard library of HTML tags is fairly limited and intentionally consists of low-level building blocks, meant to be composed by developers into more high-level functionality. Now that…Java Script6 min readJava Script6 min read
