Web Development

Getting Started With Web Components

Posted on by djbrensinger

Everyone has their favorite tools, languages and JavaScript frameworks. JavaScript frameworks allow you to create components. Which you can reuse throughout your apps. What if you can’t use a specific framework? You can use Vanilla JavaScript to build web components.

Geting Started With Web Components
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

What are web components?

Web components are a set of web technologies that allow you to create custom reusable HTML elements. These elements are not dependent on using a specific framework. You can use them without having to load a framework like React or Angular.

To build a web component, you can use these three technologies:

  • Custom Elements: A JavaScript API that allows you to create custom elements which you can use like HTML tags.
  • Shadow DOM: The Shadow DOM API provides a way to attach a hidden and separate Document Object Model to a web component. This keeps your component’s HTML, CSS and JavaScript separate from the rest of the web page.
  • HTML Templates: Use HTML tags <template> and <slot> to hold HTML that doesn’t display when the page loads. You load it with JavaScript at a later time.

Can I use web components in a JavaScript framework?

Yes. You can use your component in whatever JavaScript framework you want or none at all. If you need to switch to a new framework, you don’t have to rewrite your web component. Learn how to get started with building a web components.

Want to create your own components?

Check out these tools and resources for building your own web components.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more from the Web Components Community and Web Components.

Why Use a Coding Style Guide

Posted on by djbrensinger

What is a coding style? It is the way your code looks. The way you learned how to code, the tools and languages that influenced your personal style. Your style is influence by the many decisions that you make while writing code. If you work on a team, the team has its own standards that also influence how you write code.

Why Use a Coding Style Guide
Lubos Houska from Pixabay

Code is the way you communicate with other developers. To make sure that your code is understandable to other, you need to focus on writing code that is consistent and readable.

How do you make your code understandable?

Consistency

Pick a way of writing and organizing your code. You’ll want to decide:

  • Tabs or spaces for indentation
  • A naming convention for variables and functions
  • How much white space you are going to use

If you have trouble deciding, look at coding style guides for suggestions.

Python Coding Style Guide

Readability

Code is written for both computers and people to read. You want your code to communicate what it does. Remember, you won’t always be the person maintaining your code. You want your code to be readable and maintainable by your future self or another developer.

What can you do to make your code readable?

  • Pick a coding style guide for the language that you are using and follow it. By following it, you can focus on writing the code not formatting it.
  • Use meaningful naming conventions and comments. Check out How to Comment Your Code like a Pro.
  • Format and layout your code with white space.
  • Use tools to help manage your code. Tools like JSHint, Prettier, or W3C Validator

Whether you are working alone or on a team, using a coding style guide can help you be more productive as a developer. Remember, you aren’t writing code for the computer but for yourself and others.

DevTools Tips and More

Posted on by djbrensinger

What are browser dev tools?
Your web browser has a suite of developer tools. You can use these tools to analyze problems, edit CSS and debug issues with JavaScript.

DevTools Tips and More

Debugging can be a slow and challenging. If you use Chrome to develop, you may find that you can’t use the same tool in another browser. This can be frustrating when solving problems.

Can I DevTools?

Can I DevTools is a website by Pankaj Parashar that is similar to Can I use? It shows and compares dev tools. You can quickly see if a browser supports the dev tool you need.

More DevTools Tips

DevTools has many useful features and shortcuts. It is hard to learn them all. Start with DevTools Debugging Tips and Shortcuts to learn some of the useful features for debugging in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari.

If you want to know how to do something in DevTools, check out DevToolsTips. You’ll find tips on how to empty the cache and do a hard reset, copy and elements style and debug unwanted scrollbars.

Browser DevTools Docs

Each browser has its own set of developer tools.

Managing User Experience Debit

Posted on by djbrensinger

What is UX Debt? Like technical debt, UX debt piles up over time. Each design decision that you make can affect the user experience. Do you create a great user experience or ship your product? If you’re on a tight deadline, shipping wins.

Managing User Experience Debt
Photo by Sarah Pflug from Burst

What are the types of UX Debt?

There are two types of UX Debt — Intentional and Unintentional. Intentional debt occurs when you don’t have time or the resources to build your product right. Unintentional debt occurs over time. Design decisions that worked yesterday may not work today. Your users have changed and your UI hasn’t.

How do you manage it?

User Experience debt becomes a problem when you ignore it. Like technical debt, you need to manage how you handle it.

1. Determine where UX debt exists.

You need to figure out what issues you need to fix. Common places to look for problems are:

  • User Interface. Your buttons, links and visual styles may be hard to understand.
  • Content or copy. Check your written text, labels and headlines. They may be using confusing or hard to understand language.
  • Interaction Design. Is it easy to move from one page to the next?
  • Consistency. Does your UI look the same? Your elements should look and behave the same way.

How do you identify it?

  • Ask your users.
  • Use and analyze your analytics.
  • Perform regular user testing.

2. Focus on fixing debt

Not all issues are the same. Some need to be fixed right way. Others can wait until you have time. Rank the issues so you know which ones need to be handled first.

3. Build time into your schedule

Plan to tackle the UX issues that you have identified. If you don’t add them to your development schedule, you’ll forget to address them.

Learn more about UX Debt

Getting started with CSS Math

Posted on by djbrensinger

Why do Math in CSS? Math functions in CSS can make your life easier. It makes reading the CSS easier. You can save time by avoid having to do the calculations yourself.

Getting Started with CSS
Photo By: Chenspec on Pixabay

Use mathematical expressions to calculate property values such as width or padding.

What type of Math functions can you use?

  • calc()
  • max()
  • min()
  • clamp()

These four Math functions are currently supported by all browsers.

calc()

The calc() function allows you to do basic math. Add, subtract, multiply and divide. You use it the calculate the value for different properties.

This example shows using calc() to calculate a width using subtraction:

.main-content {
  width: calc(100% - 20px);
}

Or you could use it to set the value for part of a property. For example:

.custom-el {
  margin: 10px calc(3em + 2px);
}

You can learn more about how to use this useful function from CSS-Tricks in A Complete Guide to calc().

max()

The max() function takes the largest value from a list of values and sets it to the property value. For example, you may want to set the width to be either 50% or 300px. It picks the value that happens to be larger depending on the viewport size. 

.custom-box {
  width: max(50%, 300px);
}

min()

The min() function does the opposite of max(). It takes the smallest value and sets it to the property value. In the custom-box example, you could:

.custom-box {
  width: min(50%, 300px);
}

In this case, the custom-box could not get bigger than 300px.

clamp()

The clamp() function takes three parameters. A minimum value, preferred value and maximum value. It selects a middle value with between the smallest and largest values. clamp() uses that value and sets it to the property.

For example, you can use it for setting a font size that grows with the size of the viewport. Your font won’t get smaller or larger than the specified values. By using clamp(), you can achieve the same effect as the code in Fluid Typography with less code.

Learn more about using Math in CSS