That HTML Blog: Weekly Digest #1
Friday, July 21, 2023
Welcome to the very first installment of the weekly digest for That HTML Blog. I'm still tracking down production workflow glitches, including this very digest getting generated much later in the day than I wanted, and the fact the feed I used to pull content in from the blog contains only 10 items at a time so this isn't even the full rundown. I'll make sure that gets resolved in future. (Meanwhile, link to the blog directly to get caught up!)
Anyhoo, there's a huge kerfuffle going on right now regarding Google and a new API proposal that on the face of it seems to provide web servers + clients the ability to refuse service to any combination thereof they don't deem properly authorized. I'm pretty spooked as well as skeptical we'll see any meaningful feedback addressed by the proposal authors in the near term, but maybe by this time next week we'll have a clearer picture of just WTF is going on.
It should go without saying that the free and open web only works because servers and clients don't trust each other. Any server can—and should barring any general techniques such as rate limiting or DDoS mitigation strategies—provide data to any client regardless of the who, where, what, and why. That's how the web works, and it's very much a feature not a bug for a variety of sociopolitical and technological reasons.
All right, with that out of the way, on to this week's thrilling links!
Dynamic Slots ➦
Cory LaViska of Shoelace fame writes about an interesting data-driven technique of employing slots in web components. Whether or not you end up utilizing this pattern, the fact is slots provide a truly exciting way of building layout in components which can ingest HTML content defined elsewhere.
Talking gTLDs on Just a Spec Podcast ➦
Ayush and I once again up to our usual shenanigans on the Just a Spec Podcast, this time talking about DNS and gTLDs:
And I forgot to mention, we share some of our goofier registered domain names and DNS-related pranks over the years, so you won’t want to miss this one…
Array to Object/Map Grouping is Coming to JavaScript ➦
Ollie Williams writes over at Fully Stacked:
Object.groupBy is an array or any other iterable. The second is a callback function. This example separates numbers into two groups depending on whether they are odd or even.
Guest on The Vanilla JS Podcast ➦
I was honored to make an appearance on The Vanilla JS Podcast hosted by Chris Ferdinandi:
I hope you enjoy the listen!
Chromium browsers shipping CSS Subgrid in September ➦
Bramus at Chrome Developer Relations says CSS Subgrid will be shipping in Chrome 117:
Here’s a codepen to check if your browser supports CSS Subgrid.
Accessible Dialogs and Focus ➦
Manuel Matuzović writes in “O dialog focus, where art thou?”:
showModal() method to open a modal <dialog>, where does the focus go by default, and how can you move it elsewhere?Can you imagine a job interviewer caring about accessibility and HTML? Me neither, but the question is interesting nevertheless. I didn’t know the answer, so I tested it.
The syndicate – Adactio ➦
It is fitting that on the launch of this new indie weblog, I quote from the man, the myth, the legend himself: Jeremy Keith.
Just a Spec Podcast: Obscure (but Awesome) HTML Tags ➦
Of course, with the launch of this new blog, I must indulge in a wee bit of self-promotion. 😏 Ayush and I had a lot of fun with this episode, talking all about some of our favorite HTML tags which you may or may not have heard of…
I hope you enjoy the listen!
ABCs of CSS ➦
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This is absolute genius. All these comics about CSS are created by Alvaro Montoro using CSS (wut).
Check this One Ring as well! (Make sure you go view the HTML source page…)
driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more ➦
I always love coming across vanilla JavaScript libraries which seem to do one thing well and are lightweight and easy to grasp. I haven’t used driver.js on a project myself, but I could definitely see myself reaching for it.
BTW, I’d recommend you use code-splitting or “islands architecture” to keep this out of your main JS bundle, should you choose to use it.
And that's all folks! See you next week. ✌️
–Jared