A blog featuring tutorials about JavaScript, HTML5, AJAX, PHP, CSS, WordPress, and everything else development.
Set Brave as Default Browser from Command LineI’ve been a huge fan of the Brave web browser for years. They’re crypto-friendly, provide native ad-blocking features, and even provide Tor integration. Whenever I set up new systems, I automate Brave as the default browser. You can use the following shell command to set Brave as the default browser: open -a "Brave Browser" --args […]
09/26/22
CSS :autofillAutofilling HTML input elements is a frequent user action that can drastically improve user experience. Hell, we all autofill for our passwords and address information. But what control do we have when input elements have been autofilled? To add custom CSS styles to inputs whose contents have been autofilled by the browser, you can use […]
09/22/22
Monitor Events and Function Calls via ConsoleDespite having worked on the very complex Firefox for a number of years, I’ll always love plain old console.log debugging. Logging can provide an audit trail as events happen and text you can share with others. Did you know that chrome provides monitorEvents and monitor so that you can get a log each time an […]
08/29/22
CSS :out-of-rangeOne aspect of web development I’ve always loathed was working with forms. Form elements have been traditionally difficult to style due to OS and browser differences, and validation can be a nightmare. Luckily the native HTML APIs added methods for improving the form validation situation. With input[type=number] elements, you can add min and max attributes. […]
08/22/22
git Force PushRebasing is a frequent task for anyone using git. We sometimes use rebasing to branch our code from the last changes or even just to drop commits from a branch. Oftentimes when trying to push after a rebase, you’ll see something like the following: hint: Updates were rejected because the tip of your current branch […]
08/19/22
Specify Node Versions with .nvmrcI’ve heavily promoted nvm, a Node.js version manager, over the years. Having a tool to manage multiple versions of a language interpreter has been so useful, especially due to the complexity of Node.js package management. One tip I like to give new developers is adding a .nvmrc file to their repositories. The file contents is […]
08/09/22
How to Inject a Global with Web Extensions in Manifest V3For those of you not familiar with the world of web extension development, a storm is brewing with Chrome. Google will stop support for manifest version 2, which is what the vast majority of web extensions use. Manifest version 3 sees many changes but the largest change is moving from persistent background scripts to service […]
08/08/22
How Plugins Enhance The WYSIWYG Editing Experience (Sponsored)WYSIWYG editors are one of the core components of any content management system (CMS). A well-coded, feature-filled WYSIWYG HTML editor can distinguish between a CMS users love and one they can’t stand. While all WYSIWYG editors have a set of basic functionality, the power of plugins enhances the editing experience. Plugins allow WYSIWYG editors to […]
08/02/22
JavaScript Event.defaultPreventedWhether you started with the old on_____ property or addEventListener, you know that events drive user experiences in modern JavaScript. If you’ve worked with events, you know that preventDefault() and stopPropagation() are frequently used to handle events. One thing you probably didn’t know: there’s a defaultPrevented proptery on events! Consider the following block of code: […]
07/27/22
7 Ways to Optimize Performance for Your WordPress Site (Sponsored)The vast majority of blogs, news websites, and information websites run on WordPress. While the WordPress developer team and community do their best to ensure wordPress is performant, there are a number of practices you can implement to keep your site blazing fast. Let’s look at some of them! Use Cloudinary WordPress Plugin for Media […]
07/18/22
How to Get Extension Manifest InformationWorking on a web extension can be kinda wild — on one side you’re essentially just coding a website, on the other side you’re limited to what the browser says you can do in the extension execution environment. One change in that environment is coming January 2023 — pushing extensions to move to manifest version […]
07/10/22
How to Reverse an Animated GIFModifying visual media via code has always been a fascination of mine. Probably because I’m not a designer and I tend to stick to what I’m good at. One visual effect I love is seeing video reversed — it provides a sometimes hilarious perspective on a given event. Take this reversed water effect for example: […]
06/23/22
CSS :optionalA decade ago HTML and CSS added the ability to, at least signal, validation of form fields. The required attribute helped inform users which fields were required, while pattern allowed developers to provide a regular expression to match against an <input>‘s value. Targeting required fields and validation values with just CSS and HTML was very […]
05/22/22
Get a Random Array Item with JavaScriptJavaScript Arrays are probably my favorite primitive in JavaScript. You can do all sorts of awesome things with arrays: get unique values, clone them, empty them, etc. What about getting a random value from an array? To get a random item from an array, you can employ Math.random: const arr = [ "one", "two", "three", […]
05/09/22
Legacy String Methods for Generating HTMLI’m always really excited to see new methods on JavaScript primitives. These additions are acknowledgement that the language needs to evolve and that we’re doing exciting new things. That being said, I somehow just discovered some legacy String methods that you probably shouldn’t use but have existed forever. Let’s take a look! These legacy string […]
04/26/22
Interview with an Intiface Haptics EngineerI was recently re-reading my Interview with a PornHub Web Developer and one bit I started thinking about was the VR question and the idea of making users not just see but feel` something. The haptic feedback of VR games is what really sets them apart from your standard PC or console game. So when […]
04/25/22
Input valueAsNumberEvery once in a while I learn about a JavaScript property that I wish I had known about years earlier — valueAsNumber is one of them. The valueAsNumber provides the value of an input[type=number] as a Number type, instead of the traditional string representation when you get the value: /* Assuming an <input type="number" value="1.234" […]
04/05/22
Advanced Code Display with Code Detection API (Sponsored)Web apps are accepting numerous types of inputs, from basic text to code to imagery, files, and more. It’s important that we validate the contents we receive but if you do allow arbitrary text, it’s good to know what exactly has been submitted so you can present it properly. Enter the Code Detection API — […]
04/04/22
CSS :hasFor as long as developers have written CSS code, we’ve been desperate to have a method to allow styling a parent element based child characteristics. That’s not been possible until now. CSS has introduced the :has pseudo-class which allows styling a parent based on a relative CSS selector! Let’s have a look at a few […]
03/28/22
Flexible, Powerful DataGrad from Sencha (Sponsored)Many of the web functionalities that we rely on once lived within individual desktop applications. From office suites, games, and financial tools, all of them are now web applications; they’re just as feature packed as their desktop counterparts. In the past I’ve used a variety of JavaScript grid widgets on client sites, and each had […]